From the Other Side
by Tellytubby101
Summary: As with all strange things, it started off small enough. Yet Iruka never expected a small child to be a source of his new-found chaos. Especially one that wore orange goggles and bore the mark of the fallen Uchiha clan. KakaIru. Shounen-ai.
1. Bury the Castle

_**From the Other Side.**_

**A/N: The original concept belongs entirely to **_**Beasiesgal**_**, (it was a blueprint to a doujinshi she never got around to drawing/writing), and she kindly gave me permission to write this. Hopefully, this lives up to her expectations!**

**Original prompt: 'Ghostly Connections':**

_"While visiting the memorial stone Iruka crosses paths with a young thirteen-year old chuunin who boldly bears the Uchiha symbol on his back. When under question the boy disappears without letting his name slip. A week later, Iruka begins seeing the boy all over town and when given chase, again disappears without a trace; instead these chases lead up to Iruka bumping into Kakashi Hatake. The boy's appearances become more and more frequent, as do his encounters with Kakashi._

"As Iruka becomes more familiar with Kakashi, he begins to learn more about the boy. Finally the chilling resolution strikes Iruka when viewing a photo of Kakashi's genin Team.

"The boy he's been seeing is a ghost."

**Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine, but I borrow him from Kishi's sandbox every now and then to play with.**

**¥¥Y¥¥**

In the beginning, as with most strange things, it was just a flicker in the corner of his eyes. The slightest shine of light from some reflected metal; a blur of black, ruffled hair; muted orange and black clothes that didn't look familiar, but at the same time, did. _Abnormal_ enough for notice, not yet enough for concern; small things that when placed together soon correlated to a larger picture.

Admittedly, it took Iruka longer he would have liked to piece together enough evidence to begin worrying. As it were, his defences weren't as high alert as they would normally be, safe as he could be in his village, doing what he loved best by teaching children. The oddest thing was, there was nothing overly strange or threatening about the chakra that he occasionally sensed with these appearances in the technical sense, but it made the hairs on his neck stand on end, and his flesh pimple with goose bumps as a voice within him said, '_Something isn't right._'

The feelings started when he was on a relatively simple and peaceful scouting mission in the east side of the village, searching for the head of a narcotics ring springing up with a startling speed. He was just writing up a list of a few suspects that might have been the head of the organisation when he first felt it. Iruka hoped, more than anything else, that it would go away, but when days turned to weeks, he decided it was about time to act.

The only reason most ninja lived past their mid-twenties is because they listened to their instincts. So one day in the cold, harsh winter of Konoha, Iruka left his warm house with half-graded papers littering his desk and a still steaming cup of hot tea weighing them down; to follow the briefest flare of chakra he'd quickly learned to distinguish as something _other_. It was Iruka's duty as a ninja to scope the anomaly out and discern whether or not it classified as a threat to the sanctity of the village, or was merely an irritant to his person.

Normally, the chuunin would be at home, alone, admiring the first snowfalls of the winter season, _fuyu_, the season in which both of his parents were born, and the very season in which they met and married. Instead, he was sprinting on the rooftops, narrowly avoiding thin pools of half-frozen water and leaping over sheets of shiny ice. He cursed the slush of ice-water that was seeping into his open-toed sandals, effectively numbing his feet, even with the chakra he was pumping into them to quicken his pace.

Iruka had keen eyesight for the smallest movements, an ideal trait to have in a classroom of rowdy children, and he could just barely see the object of his attentions running towards the forests.

The person looked small, oddly almost childlike, but Iruka reasoned that it was distance impairing his perspective, for what child would bother him for so long? And more importantly, Iruka recognised all the chakra flares of the Academy pre-genin, most genin, too, and this was different than the rest in a way he couldn't explain. _Perhaps a missing-nin of sorts infiltrated the village walls? _The schoolteacher played around with various reasons, but none seemed to stick right in his mind.

Hitting the tree line, Iruka slowed his pace and immediately heard a chuckle coming from his right. It was faint, almost impossible to hear in the silence filled with Iruka's own heartbeat and breaths and thuds of muted footfalls on branches, but the chuunin knew for certain he heard something.

Veering east, Iruka moved on, his eyes failing him as his prey hid behind the shadows of trees and the bulk of canopy leaves. However, the person couldn't seem to help but laugh, spurring Iruka's movements on, guiding his path.

_Could it be a trap?_ But no, Iruka reasoned. He was a high-ranked chuunin, with access to rather delicate village information, but nothing worth the effort of week-long observation coupled with the trouble of lure and capture. Iruka wasn't being self-depreciative. He was bearing out the logistics of the situation.

If anything, Nara Yoshino had more to fear from outlining villages than he did, being the head of the Mission Room. Usually taking local mid-rank missions, Iruka couldn't have possibly made many—or any—threatening enemies in the last few years. Perhaps recklessly, Iruka's interest piqued, and it wasn't just duty to his village that kept him moving forward.

Having to comb the forests several times a year to collect plant samples for his classes, to show examples of edible and non-edible flora, Iruka was well-acquainted with the layout of the woods. As erratic and disarrayed as the plant populous appeared, they were actually a coded map of distance and bearing to the village.

A lack of redwoods told Iruka that he was running past the village 'safe zone', an expanse of woods regularly patrolled, and the burgeoning oaks indicated he was moving steadily north of the village. The shrubbery far beneath where he was, high up on wide branches and the such, helped him keep track of his bearing in a more specific manner, accommodating since the stars were blocked by dark clouds and the leafy canopy.

Things were still light, Iruka felt no real danger, only the slight thrill that came from any chase, but when the tang of iron and blood filled his next breath, Iruka immediately headed towards the scent with two kunai unsheathed in both hands. Being overcautious and looking the fool was always a better alternative than being cocky and a dead man.

Another gasp of laughter, almost a whisper of noise made Iruka whip his head around to the left and jump to another branch soundlessly. There, he was stunned into momentary silence by the sight in front of him.

Hatake Kakashi was leaning heavily against a thick tree trunk a few meters away from Iruka, his torso drenched in what looked scarily like his own blood. The Copy-Nin was paler than usual, shivering in what seemed like ANBU gear as the snow fell around him. A clawed hand was holding his gut weakly, and Kakashi seemed ignorant of the few throwing stars imbedded in his back and shoulder in the face of a bigger threat on his life.

They had seen each other face-to-face a few times; the mission rooms mainly, but sometimes in meetings or on the street. A few genial pleasantries had been passed between them, but no conversation of consequence. Still, Iruka was linked to the man by their village and their joint fight of protecting it, and he hesitated no longer.

Like a caged animal, Kakashi startled and readied for attack the moment Iruka leapt onto his trunk, weapons already stored away in a moment of foresight; he didn't want to come off as a threat to someone who was injured and was surely not going to think twice of killing someone that seemed harmful. It was in Iruka's very base instincts to assist an injured colleague, but he wasn't going to be as stupid as rush in and startle the older man.

"Umino Iruka, chuunin of Leaf," Iruka declared slowly, softly, hands raised as if facing off a slow child with a unpinned grenade who was unsure with where he was and what he was to do. From his files, Kakashi certainly had enough justu and firepower to bring down an army. "I'm an ally. I'm here to _help_."

The jounin—well, in this situation he was dressed up as an ANBU without a porcelain mask—straightened and revealed a whirling Sharingan eye to inspect Iruka. The younger man didn't flinch away, and met the spiral of red and black dead on. Not only was he a teacher, well-versed in all of Leaf's major bloodlines, but when he was younger, he had a genin teammate that was in the Uchiha clan; Iruka knew what to expect from the Mirror Wheel Eyes.

"Not an illusion then," nodded Kakashi with a groan, closing his red eye, leaving his grey eye to wearily scan the area. The man was sliding down the tree trunk, yet staying upright from what seemed like sheer willpower. "Strange. I'd only sent for help a minute earlier." Weak as he was, Kakashi still twitched with suspicion. It was certainly admirable, in any other circumstance, of how _aware_ the man remained in the face of desperation, injury and adversary.

Vaguely, he could recall handing a scroll to Kakashi, a mission ranked high-B. It was over two months ago, and he hadn't seen the man since, so he could objectively assume that this might be the very same mission. The goal, if Iruka could remember correctly, was to hunt down some missing-nin that was assumed to be slaughtering Konoha ninja returning to the village, taking advantage of their weariness and killing them ruthlessly.

Since the murders were erratic and random, no binding ties between victims, apart from the fact all of them had their internal organs removed; it was assumed they were being killed simply for being Leaf-nin. The hairs on Iruka's neck rose as he realized that they could soon be the next targets if they didn't leave soon. Kakashi was meant to be hunting them, but since he was so badly injured, then there would a slim chance of survival if they were pitted off in a fight.

"I wasn't sent to help. I was already here," Iruka finally replied, not advancing, waiting for the Copy-Nin to accept his presence and aid. Rising panic was squashed, and Iruka tried to think logically about the situation. The percentage rates of actually stumbling across the murderers were slim to none at the moment, since most of the attacks happened on the east side. The trees were telling him they were on the north side. It was okay.

Snow was gathering in his hair, and he shivered when some flakes melted on his nose, already frozen cold from the icy air that had whipped past his face as he'd ran.

After giving a brief stare of blatant disbelief, the jounin asked, "Doing what?"

"Running after the—" Iruka froze and spun around on the heel of his foot, cursing quietly to himself as his eyes searched the surroundings desperately. But the prickle of his neck was gone. He'd lost his target! _Damn it!_ Even without the moon and the sun to tell the time, Iruka could feel it in his bones that he'd been sprinting all out for hours.

Sighing, rubbing his brow roughly with gloved hands, the chuunin muttered, "Never mind. I was chasing something—some_one_—and they've seemed to escape. No matter. It is more important I get you to the hospital." At least his efforts were not wasted if he was able to help a fellow ninja.

Looking back to Kakashi, Iruka was slightly surprised to see a series of small throwing stars out in the older man's hands, between his fingers, flashing in the half-light of the muted darkness.

_Moving so quickly probably made him jump_, Iruka frowned. However, before he could say anything else, perhaps some witty retort about how Kakashi would be lucky to be able to stand in his condition, let alone attempt battle, the Copy-Nin sunk to his knees.

Instinctively, Iruka moved and caught the man, noticing with increased worry about just how _cold _he was, silver hair frozen with frost, and how damp his front was with blood. From lax hands did the silver stars fall with a light thud on the branch. Iruka could barely feel a pulse in the other man's neck.

There was no time to wait for procedure and have Kakashi willingly accept his assistance now. It was one thing helping an injured person back to the village, but carting someone unconscious was another matter entirely. Wrapping his arms around the jounin more snugly, Iruka braced his body for the chakra loss he was about to experience. There was no other way.

Making the signs with fumbling, frozen fingers, Iruka teleported them both directly into the waiting room of the hospital. Chaos ensued when the medic-nin suddenly found two ninja on their hands—a jounin near death from exposure and blood loss from multiple chest wounds, and a chuunin pale and panting from exerting so much chakra on teleportation that well exceeded the recommended few miles.

All-in-all, the incident was a normal night in the comings and goings of the hospital's emergency ninja centre, and even for the jounin, by his standards; but certainly it was a novel experience for Iruka, passed out on the cold tiles of the floor.

¥¥Y¥¥

"Damn it," Shizune muttered. "You should have waited for back-up."

From her tone and by the set of her lips and the tightness around her eyes, Iruka could see that she was very upset. For good reason, he could suppose. Since she and Iruka were brought together by the unfortunate death of a mutual friend, they'd developed a close bond of their own. The circumstances of their friendship were unfortunately not an entirely uncommon occurrence in ninja circles.

Iruka and Shizune were holed up in a small bar, clean and slightly smoky, usually a haunt of civilians, but the pair graced the patrons of the shop with their money more often than 'official' ninja hang-outs, mainly due to the added element of privacy the place afforded. The alcohol was superb and the price wasn't too demanding – not to mention, it was always fun eavesdropping on the other customers when they felt like it:

"Oh my, the cats in my street are becoming so feral! It's making life impossibly difficult at the vet clinic!" came from a blundering old woman in the booth next to them.

"I swear, my boy is getting more and more paranoid every day—he swore he saw aliens in the sky the other day!" A mother was fussing with a group of her friends.

"D'ya hear? Ninja aren't working for the better good! It's all a _huge_ conspiracy, I tell ya..." complained a drunken youth with too much time on his hands.

Normally, Shizune and Iruka would be laughing quietly over the trivial things the people around them would find the time to waste breath on, but today the kunoichi had set the tone to a more sombre level.

"Calm down, Shizune," replied Iruka blithely, buzzed slightly from the alcohol and the feeling of just being _alive_. "I'm here, aren't I? You're making this too big a fuss."

"Pfft," snorted the kunoichi as she downed another shot of sake. "_I_ know that _you_ know how far you were from the village, and I _know_ you know how your chakra stores would have reacted to the long-distance teleportation."

The way they were sitting in the secluded booth was almost intimate from the view of a casual observer, but they were separated from Shizune's pet pig, Ton-Ton, sitting happily between them, occasionally snacking from the carrots Iruka was feeding him.

"Pray tell," Iruka asked as he leant back in his seat, "how exactly do _you_ know what _I_ know so well?" It wasn't quite night time, and it wasn't quite afternoon, and Iruka wanted to clear the air so they could relax. He'd just been discharged at half past two, and he didn't want to mull over what had been done already.

"I know, Iruka, because I am," and here Shizune paused dramatically before continuing, "_ninja_." She was playing on a current trend of Leaf civilians to use the explanation of 'being ninja' to prove irrational facts or occurrences done by other people. With examples like Gai and Lee running around, they couldn't be faulted with their views either.

Shizune was a bit proper when it came to regulations and responsibility, but Iruka had found after working around her for a long time that once she relaxed a bit, they were quite compatible together—as friends, if nothing more.

Anyway, Iruka laughed and drank some sake from the small bottle he purchased for himself. 'Drinking from a bottle is always more manly,' according to his father, and true or not, it was a small habit he'd picked up and enjoyed on occasion.

"In any case, it was lucky that I hit the hospital the first time 'round," remarked Iruka, almost offhandedly, "because I certainly couldn't have gone again after a jump that big."

"According to your charts, you most definitely would have died if you'd attempted a second try," Shizune stated bluntly.

Iruka blinked, and then frowned. "You've been checking my medical charts behind my back again?" He raised an eyebrow, but Shizune returned the wry gaze with a set stare of her own.

Finally, her face softened and the kunoichi sighed, "It's your life, but remember that it'll be a damned lot of paperwork if you die." Translation: _I care_.

For a moment, a brief split second, Iruka thought they could have done well together as a couple. They were both strong ninja trusted with secrets, with high levels of intelligence. Theoretically, it would be an ideal pairing for children with both parties having strong genetics.

However, they didn't feel that way towards each other. Shizune worked tirelessly under Tsunade and cared for her work and mentor more than she could ever commit to someone else. Iruka still felt young, and not quite ready to settle just yet. Not to mention, he hadn't found that person who mirrored him and could fulfill him in a way he needed.

"Enough with this ghastly talk of death," Iruka interjected suddenly. "I wasn't even on a mission! It was simply a miscalculation that got me kept in overnight. That's all." He waved over a barmaid. "Another bottle, please," he requested. "Add some fries as well, if it isn't too much of a bother."

As soon as the girl walked away, Shizune turned to the chuunin and made a face. "Really, Iruka? You know that deep-fried nonsense is utterly unhealthy."

"Live a little," jibed Iruka, taking another gulp of sake. "It's not like fries are any worse than tempura. They're just a little foreign, and I dunno, 'exotic', compared to what we're used to."

"Bah," Shizune said, trying to refrain from cursing, a bad habit she was attempting to cut back on. "If nothing more, this foreign food will kill you before another ninja can."

From there conversation degraded into a flowing, irrational, debased argument of the pros and cons of different varieties of food in battle. A surprising amount of information brought up was factual from odd incidents and stories that floated around the village like half-remembered myths and legends.

"—which is why you don't carry bags of flour around a fire-jutsu specialist," concluded Shizune sagely, as Iruka chuckled loudly. She was barely buzzed, since Shizune knew better than to get overly drunk in front of Tsunade, who always seemed to take it as an invitation or introduction to a competition.

Iruka wasn't meant to get back to work until Tuesday, so he'd drunk a little more than he was usually apt to. Some words slurred, but overall, he was still capable of flinging a kunai with perfect aim into a dartboard across the room—as Iruka spontaneously demonstrated to Shizune a moment later.

"Okay, big boy," laughed Shizune as startled yelps came from the surrounding patrons. "Time for you to go home and get some proper rest, and time for me to kick Tsunade out of the office and make sure she doesn't get plastered when she's home. How much work do you think has been piled up since I've taken a half-day off?"

Shizune made sure Iruka ate something more substantial than fries, making sure he finished a pork bun so there'd be something in his stomach to soak up the alcohol, and watched as he washed it down with some tea. She was particularly fussy, but since he'd worried her so much, he allowed the attentions before she left.

Walking home—on the ground, because ninja didn't _always_ use the rooftops to move across—Iruka felt the smack of cold air sober him up a bit, and he smiled at the piles of white snow surrounding the footpaths. It wasn't every year that Fire Country got snow, so he revelled in the small wonder of nature, even if the crisp air burned his cheeks like cold fir, making him wish for his knitted scarf; the scratchy, knotted one his mother had made for his father.

Passing a closing stall, he heard a tinny old radio blare some news warning citizens of a new drug outbreak on the east side of the village. The sound of static from the little box echoed in the otherwise quiet streets.

Rubbing his gloved hands together in an effort, perhaps vain, to generate heat, Iruka saw it again. There was the slightest twinge of something in his gut, and he saw the shine of reflected moonlight coming from—what was that? Iruka swore they looked like goggles, except that particular ninja garb was reasonably unfashionable as of late, unless you were on a trip to Suna.

A voice barely reached him, carried by the winds to Iruka's ears. "_Catch me if you can!_" Looking to his left, a flash of metallic light made him instinctively flinch, his eyes just catching a shot of a head of black, spiky points. Sobered up nearly completely now, the chuunin felt the goose bumps form that weren't from the cold, and the hairs on his neck raise with something that wasn't fear.

He immediately started running.

Since the snow had been piling on the paths, Iruka had donned clumsy, heavy—but blissfully warm—wool-lined boots. A part of him hindered by the movement felt he should've regretted the option, that is until he found that these boots had more grip than his open-toed sandals and prevented him from slipping completely into several puddles. Whoever—_whatever_—he was chasing seemed to find that funny, as he'd stop every time Iruka stumbled to take a moment to laugh.

This only served to piss Iruka off and simultaneously fan the fires of his curiosity. His father always said that he was far too meddlesome a child, having snuck into his parents' room as a young toddler and then messed around with their weapons drawer, scarring his face for life. It was fortunate he got off with a light rant about weapons safety; the nanny that was looking after him while his parents were on a mission got fired.

When the person disappeared into the trees, Iruka stopped at the south-east boundary gate, slightly disappointed he was breathless already. Chakra depletion was something he experienced every now and then, but never to the magnitude that his last teleportation brought him. It'd been two days and he was still weary.

If there were any guards patrolling the section of fencing he was looking at, he might have continued searching, more confident with back-up. However, there was none, and even a small part of him whispered that he wouldn't have accepted help anyway; this was the chuunin's mystery and he wanted to solve it himself.

Noticing that he was no longer pursued, the person came back from the forest into view, just hidden in the shadows of the tall trees. Umino blinked slowly, momentarily numbed with surprised. It _was_ a child, no doubt about it now. Short, stocky stature of a small boy; eyes hidden by bulky goggles; hair the spiky mess he'd seen earlier; nothing he saw registered as any of the genin or pre-genin, or even any of the chuunin he knew.

The alarm bells in his mind didn't ring though; maybe because of the glinting forehead protector. Distance seemed to blur everything else, the edges of the figure fuzzy and almost transparent, but Iruka could see the Leaf Village symbol with crystal perfect clarity. Maybe the last dregs of alcohol made him look blurred, Iruka muttered to himself.

Cocking his head the side, the boy seemed to ask, "_Coming?_"

Breathing in a lungful of cold air, the teacher still felt drained, so he reluctantly shook his head. Iruka could try and give chase, but he'd probably pass out near the edges of the 'safe zone'. It wasn't worth giving Shizune another bout of worry—not to mention, she could yell as loud as the Hokage when given reason to.

Instead of disappointment dimming the boy's features, a certain joy radiated and though Iruka was still unable to clearly identify the person's face, he could see his bright grin. _Was he happy that I wouldn't follow? _Iruka wondered as the child darted off through the trunks. _Or was he happy that I seemed to play along?_

At least it seemed there was no real threat from the child. That fact didn't do much to dampen his curiosity, however.

"Umino," his name was quietly said from behind him, causing him to jolt with a bit of surprise. If Iruka missed someone sneaking up on him, he was either concentrating too much on the boy or training too little. Perhaps a bit of both with the need for bed rest added in.

Turning around slowly for a ninja, Iruka was eye-to-eye with the Copy-Nin, who certainly looked no worse for wear, thanks to his bulky jounin clothes hiding most of the bandages. Lady Tsunade was certainly something amazing if she made the man fit for discharge in so short a time.

Nodding his head in an ingrained habit of formalities his grandmother instilled in him, Iruka politely murmured, "Hatake." When nothing was said in the time that passed that of a polite pause, he continued, "Are you recovering well from the grievances of your last mission?"

"I am doing well enough, all things considered. Lady Tsunade is nothing short of a miracle worker, when she puts her mind to things." A small smile flittered over Kakashi's face as he bowed shortly, an action of respect that rather shocked the chuunin. "I've come here to thank you for assisting me; even with my difficult nature and natural suspicions, you helped."

A tint of warmth made his way to his cheeks, and Iruka was glad that they were already pink enough from the cold – a bit of extra red would go unnoticed. Scratching the back of his neck, pulling the base of his ponytail as he scrambled for words, Iruka tried to brush it off.

"It was nothing, Hatake," he replied quietly. "You know as well as I do that any Leaf would stop to assist and aid a comrade." If he wasn't sobered up from the chase, Iruka sure as hell was sobered up now. This was startlingly awkward.

"Still, it would be ungrateful not to show a little hospitality to the man that may have saved my life," the jounin stated. "Care for some dinner, my treat?" Since the teacher was decommissioned for a few more days, he was clear on work, and he certainly had nothing better to do.

Stealing a glance at the forest, Iruka noted with surprise how the boy was still there, staring intently at the teacher with his arms crossed. The boy then, slowly, clearly, nodded his head.

Confused, the chuunin turned his head back to the looming figure of the Copy-Nin, and noticed how strange it was that his only exposed eye seemed perpetually sad, even when crescented into a shadow of a smile. It didn't make sense, but Iruka felt the boy wanted him to say yes to the offer of dinner.

"Sorry, but I must decline," Iruka finally said, adding on as an after-thought, "It's not that I don't appreciate the gesture, because I do. It's just that I've already had an early dinner with Shizune."

A pause; then, "That explains the alcohol scent you're carrying."

"What—oh, of course; your nose is as sensitive as a nin-dog's, is it not?"

Kakashi didn't respond, and Iruka waited through a heavy pause before quietly saying, "Hatake?"

"You helped me – possibly even saved my life," the jounin finally sighed. "Call me Kakashi." Before the teacher could even open his mouth to voice his surprise, there was a twirling gust of leaves and debris, clearing to show that the silver-haired nin was gone.

"Theatrical jounin," Iruka grumbled confusedly to himself as he spun on his heel to head home, distracted enough to not notice the set of frustrated eyes watching his back.

¥¥Y¥¥

It'd been a week since he'd last seen 'The Boy', as Iruka had now taken to calling the person in his head. For a while, he'd played with the idea of actually naming the child, but that felt... wrong, somehow. So he settled on the impersonal title of 'The Boy' and waited for another encounter.

However, Iruka was getting the feeling that it'd be a while until that happened. For some inexplicable reason, he almost thought that the shadow that had been nipping at his heels for so long was, well, _sulking_, as ridiculous as the idea was.

"Okay, class. Decode the following message from the board," Iruka paused and slapped the board with his right hand, pushing through a pulse of chakra that ignited the message he'd written the night before in a special type of 'invisible chalk' he had bought. It was really helpful because he could write and erase text on top of the hidden message in normal chalk. When he wanted the words to disappear, another pulse of his chakra at the right frequency would wipe it clean.

"As soon as you come up to my desk with the correct answer, you can go free," Iruka continued explaining. "If I catch you cheating off one another, then you'll have an entire textbook to decode and then convert into your own style of shorthand. Understood?"

At the nods of the children who looked slightly pale at the idea of decoding an entire book of scrawled encrypted words, the chuunin smiled, and motioned for them to start. He gave the children fifteen minutes before they realized that this code was almost the same to what he had set them for homework last night. The kids who did it would get to go home early, and those who didn't would toil on it well after school.

Twenty minutes passed, twelve children had come up to his desk with hopeful faces, and only eight got it right and were allowed to leave. Two children had been caught glancing at their neighbour's work, only to be barked a warning by their teacher.

_So far, so good_, Iruka thought while eying his charges' growing frustration with a small smile. Admittedly, he had expected a few more of the brighter students to have done their homework, but at least it appeared some of them did it, which was preferable to none at all. With the peace of the room only sporadically broken with the scribble of pens, Iruka got plenty of back-logged work cleared up—while having a clone watch the students for signs of cheating, of course.

An hour had passed, and only six students were left in the classroom. They seemed genuinely upset by the perceived impossibility of working out the encrypted message, so Iruka posted some short hints on the left side of the board the help them out. Later, he would drill these rules into their heads, since he knew the ability to read codes could sometimes push you over the line of life or death, but for now, he simply guided them.

Exhaling heavily, he got up and stretched, dispelling the clone now that he had finished his work, and could focus entirely on what remained of his class. Two students left; the tips didn't seem to help them. Looking at the clock, Iruka raised his eyebrows in silent surprise at the fact they were well over the usual school closing times.

"Right," Iruka said with a chirp, clapping his hands loudly, startling the kids who had been scrawling desperately. "Clearly, you don't have a knack for decoding." Their faces fell as they stopped writing. "However, I have something that might fix that." Immediately, the children both looked up, suspicious, but hopeful.

Stepping near their desks, he handed them both a book each. As he suspected, their expressions contorted into scowls, but at that he chuckled. Things were made a little easier because both of these kids had ninja parents.

"Have your parents ever written notes to each other that you couldn't read, even though the letters are ones you know?" Iruka asked. When both children nodded slowly, he continued, "Here's what they're writing in." The boy's eyes lit up and the girl grinned wickedly.

"Technically," at the hushed whisper, they sobered up and listened in rapt attention to their teacher, "I'm not meant to be giving you this. So study very hard and in secret, and return the books as soon as you can, okay?"

At their hurried promises, Iruka shooed them out of the class, telling them he expected yesterday's homework on his desk before the bell. Closing the door and walking over to the chalkboard, he grinned widely at himself before he tidied up his desk in preparation to return home. He drank what was left of his tea, and though what was left had been stone cold for a long time, he couldn't stop smiling at what he'd done for his students.

It was all true; the book he gave them contained slightly more advanced codes normally reserved for later in the year, or even those of chuunin status. Teachers weren't meant to hand them out at this point in the year—but it wasn't illegal or disallowed. Anyway, children had nimble brains, and since he gave them the incentive to learn it, learn it quickly they would. He couldn't say it with 100% guarantee, but it'd worked every other time he'd pulled the stunt.

"That was a smart trick, sensei."

Turning around, his eyes confirmed what his prickling skin warned him two seconds earlier. 'The Boy' was back, and in the flesh this time, surprisingly enough. Before, he'd remained in shadows and always seemed to be hidden in some form.

He was wearing a dark navy-blue and orange uniform, matching goggles with a silver frame, topped off with outdated ear-protectors. He looked older than Iruka had assumed, but not that much younger than your average chuunin-graduate. Again, the clearly displayed leaf symbol prevented from Iruka being overly worried.

Iruka resisted the sudden urge to rub at his eyes, not wanting to take his eyes off the figure for a second, but unable to explain why the child was blurry around the edges. A part of him instinctively grabbed at the explanation of a casted illusion, but it didn't fit. There wasn't that sense of dispelled chakra or displaced energy.

Of all the questions swimming around in his mind, the chuunin blurted out the first and foremost: "Who are you?"

"No one special," answered the spiky-haired boy as he jumped down from his perch with a light thud. When the almost-teen looked up, Iruka couldn't see his eyes because of the glare of the goggles, but the grin was wide and innocent and flashed a set of pearly whites that were crooked in that way that showed the child was still growing into everything.

"Can you tell me why I've been seeing you around so much?" Iruka smiled, not unkindly, at the other ninja, still to be entirely placated, but calm enough to not make his hand hover over his kunai holster.

"If I say coincidence," drawled the child with a smirk, "would you believe me?"

"No," scoffed the chuunin-sensei immediately.

Sighing, he queried, "I'm supposing you don't put that much faith in fate and destiny then, do you?"

"Nope," Iruka answered honestly; he believed the future only held what you made it to be. "So can you stop skirting the original question and answer me?"

Scratching the back of his head, the young not-quite-a-man chuckled and replied, "How about you catch me and I'll tell you?"

"Hey—" Iruka immediately began to protest; this was the first time he'd gotten the chance to talk to the child, to the odd youth he didn't recognise in the slightest, and he'd be damned to let the opportunity to question pass him by.

Then the boy turned around to leap out of the window and rendered Iruka speechless.

He was proudly displaying the Uchiha symbol, a red-and-white fan splashed across his back.

After a second of pure shock, the synapses in his brain started firing off at rapid speed. The gall of the child to bear the sign of the broken clan; if any of the survivors of the Uchiha were to have seen that... the act was like a dishonourable slap to the face, far worse than any usual act of insolence.

Iruka had to get the kid and tell him off. Any child of Leaf knew the lore, but with Sasuke gone, there were bound to be those to test the boundaries.

"Hey, kid!" Iruka's voice wasn't hitting any higher than the warning decibels, but it was steadily rising. "Come back here!"

Even though he was completely healed, and giving chase wouldn't have been any real problem physically, it was the principle of the matter—he'd let this boy run off not once, but _twice_. If that wasn't a blow on masculine pride, then there wasn't much else that would be.

The chuunin had teleported immediately in front of the child, his hands out to grab the upper arms of the boy and stop him when—they passed through what felt like air. Iruka blinked and saw his fingers blindly trying to trap wisps of smoke. From the ledge of the window, the boy was standing, hands on hips with a cheeky grin lighting up his face.

"Nice try, but I can do that too," the young boy laughed. "Anyway, the use of jutsu in tag is _cheating_. Shouldn't you set an outstanding example of morals for your students?"

"No," Iruka answered immediately, "ninja aren't samurai. We aren't bound by a code of honour."

Ninja were bound by laws, rules, regulations and treaty; but honour? If discarding your honour meant completing a mission, then by all means it was encouraged, distasteful as the idea was. Iruka only tolerated teaching that particular aspect of theory to his class because he knew that it could potentially save one of charges from dying of too much pride.

"Aww, sensei," the boy complained, almost whining in his tone. "You're such a wet blanket sometimes!" He was bouncing on the heels of his feet. "Can't you humour me?"

Iruka then pretended to mull it over, before he answered with a resounding, "No."

Exhaling heavily, the boy did something surprising. He sat down on the windowsill and jutted his bottom lip out. "You're no fun."

Shrugging, Iruka replied, "You should know anyone wearing the Uchiha clan symbol that isn't an Uchiha is going to get in serious trouble."

Looking up, the light flashed on the goggles, making the black tint turn a momentary shade of white, and the kid nodded. "I know that."

The brown-haired man was confused. "Then why are you—?"

"Never mind that," the child waved it away dismissively. "But since you're not going to indulge me with a game of tag, I'll give you some advice. It could change your life, ya know."

"What is it?" Sitting on the edge of his desk, he played with the idea of giving chase and attempting another capture of the boy, but he dismissed the thought easily. Not now, he figured. Anyway, he was actually a little curious to hear what the other was going to say.

"Iruka-sensei," started the child with a seriousness that surpassed his years, "what you're looking for is right in front of your eyes. Just look closer."

Before Iruka could say anything else, the kid had disappeared without even a chakra trail to follow, leaving only the heavy words to bear down the chuunin. And it confirmed something. _He knows my name, but I don't know his. _

**¥¥Y¥¥**

**A/N: Dedicated to **_**Beasiesgal**_** for letting me play with her idea – even though this took me like three months longer than I promised to make. I actually had finished chapter one a while back, but I wanted to post on the 10/10/10. Want to guess why the date is so special? ;-P**

**Leave thoughts in a review? *Bites lip in anticipation*. :-/**


	2. The Dirty Ground

**A/N: ****Quick Japanese lesson:  
****人****= Hito (person)  
Bito = stressed version of Hito  
****旅人****Tabi-Bito ****(traveller)**

**Disclaimer: Didn't create, don't own. **

**¥¥Y¥¥**

Iruka had assumed that he'd be seeing more of the boy, persistent as that kid was, but he had no clue that he would be able to talk to him _every morning_. It seemed the child had really nothing better to do, and would come down to the windowsill at the crack of dawn, and while the chuunin was bleary eyed and huddled over a chipped mug of steaming black tea they'd talk about small and usually trivial matters. Of course, there were exceptions that split up the monotony of their conversations.

Once the child had asked solemnly, "What's your greatest ninja value?"

When Iruka replied, "Teamwork" without hesitation or pause, his young companion and smiled so brightly that the chuunin felt he passed some unofficial test.

The idea of being analysed before the sun was even fully unsheathed from its place on the horizon gave Iruka a headache, and he moved for another cup of tea. He used to drink coffee, but decided that being dependant on caffeine to wake up every morning was unhealthy and not beneficial in the long run.

The alarm in his room would blare for the second time, marking when Iruka needed to go to class. Every day, for the past five days, the child had dogged his breakfast meals with conversation and it would always end with the same request,

"Will we play tag, today?"

"Not today, when the children are out," Iruka would sigh and look at the boy and internally question the childishness of his wish.

"Then, another time?"

_Always such an eager, innocent response_. Iruka was surprisingly suspicious of innocence. His many students and years of teaching experience probably trained him out of falling for the puppy-dog eyed look.

"Perhaps. Will you tell me your name?"

"Only when you catch me," the reply was swift, nonchalant, but infuriating blasé.

More than once did Iruka wonder over the state of his sanity. Then he'd muse what would it mean if he was getting frustrated at a figment of his imagination. He never drew positive conclusions.

Saturday morning rolled around, and Iruka moved to rub at his face, only to hiss as he drew his hands away, forgetting the freshly scabbed scratches to the side of his face courtesy of shrapnel from an exploding tag gone astray. He noted that he should have changed the locks of the ingredient-and-materials cabinet to a more advanced model after he taught his class lock-picking the afternoon before. _Ahh well, you live and learn._

Groaning he sat up, hearing the satisfying cracks as his spine stretched. He looked around his room, wondering _since when had it gotten so cluttered?_ He really shouldn't have been such a slob, but honestly couldn't find the effort in picking up the mess of clothes and towels lying around. Though he really needed to do the laundry soon...

Organisation was for the Mission Room; and he already brought enough of his work life into his home life. Part of the mess in his bedroom was the stack of papers littering his desk. The mess was annoying when he was in a rush, but there actually was sense to the madness, and Iruka liked his structured, disorganised chaos, sometimes. Well, that's how he justified it, and it wasn't like there was anyone else to speak otherwise.

He was sure that his grandmother was turning in her grave at the ghastly mess of an apartment he lived in. His grandfather, on the other hand, would probably give him a congratulatory slap him on the back that would be a little too hard and laugh his chortling, stomach rumbling laugh that always made Iruka smile before giving him a speech on becoming a man.

The water of the shower was ice cold—_damn boiler was on the fritz again_—but the tea leaves were simmering in boiling water, faint wisps of steam promising a scorched tongue. Smiling slightly, the chuunin took his favourite mug from a shelf reading 'Scariest Teacher Ever'. One of his former students bought it for him after graduating school, and Iruka adored it.

"Good morning, sensei!" Like clockwork, Iruka had barely taken one searing gulp of his herbal elixir before the voice of his bright companion broke the early morning silence.

"Why do you keep popping up?"

Frowning, the child—actually, after spending so much time with him, Iruka could tell he was actually a _really_ young teenager, just on the edge of hitting puberty—muttered, "You make it sound like you're tired of my company."

"Not tired..." the chuunin sighed. "Just confused; curious, too, I'd suppose."

"I've _told_ you a game of tag would answer one of your questions." The kid was walking around his kitchen, prodding around nosily at his tarnished copper pots hanging haphazardly from the ceiling; Iruka never used them, but they weren't exactly display items or decoration – the pots and pans were his mother's. He'd wished he could say they brought him fond memories, but they didn't. His mother never taught him how to cook, nor had he ever seen her use them.

Setting his empty mug down with a light click of ceramic to wood, Iruka wiped his lips with his thumb and thought about chasing the boy for the first time in a week. There wasn't any reason not to, not this time. It was the weekend, Iruka was fully dressed, completely awake, and the light caffeine from the tea was already buzzing his body as it hit his blood stream.

As if hearing his thoughts, or noting the lack of the token refusal, the child turned around, grinned toothily, and jumped out of the window. Only pausing to grab a weapons kit, Iruka followed.

Before, the chuunin never understood where he was being led, but today he could see the path the child was taking him; to the Memorial Stone. He went regularly, usually every two or three months, to lay flowers and pay respects. It was an odd destination for a chase.

Quickly, Iruka saw that the kid was taking a long more circuitous route than the one he normally did, so he slipped away from the chase to gain the upper hand and hopefully capture the boy unaware. What the chuunin didn't see was the sly smile on the child as his pursuer slipped away—though, admittedly, he couldn't have seen it because the boy had quickly disappeared in that instantaneous way that irked Iruka to no end.

Reaching the stone, Iruka paused and sucked in a deep breath of crisp air, tasting hints of the morning dew on his tongue. Wiping the first beads of sweat from his brow, Iruka slowly approached the stone carved with the names of the dead, the stark lines of kanji on black rock was as startling and sobering as it was with every visit, the shock value never failing.

Instinctively, his eyes sought the letters of his parents' names, side-by-side as they lived and as they died. Then he read the small poem left in the middle of the memorial, written by some forgotten poet who hated war but understood it all the same.

'_When you go home,  
Tell them of us, and say;  
For your tomorrow,  
We gave our today._'

Bowing his head, closing his eyes and clasping his hands together, Iruka murmured thanks to his mother and father, to his ancestors, and a prayer to all of them and his fallen friends. Nodding affirmatively to himself, he turned around to wait for 'The Boy' to come his way, instead slightly surprised by Kakashi standing there, eying him warily.

"Hata—I mean, Kakashi." Iruka didn't know what exactly to add to that, so for a brief moment he was speechless, mouth open and dumb with silence. Swallowing hard, he added, "I'll just be leaving now—" because it was no little disrespect to intrude on a private moment of mourning for something as trivial as a game of tag.

Admittedly, it was an important game of tag so Iruka could get some answers to some bloody questions, but in the dark and silence of the memorial area, it quelled in its need. The trees were taller, he noted sadly. _It's just as quiet, though. The birds still know not to caw around here._

"No," Kakashi said, his voice dry and indifferent, but there was something defiant in the flash of his blue eye. "Don't leave. You were here first. I should be seeking your pardon, not chasing you away."

"I—" _have nothing more to say, so it's okay_. The words died on his tongue, because it wasn't the truth. He had a million more things to say to his parents, to his genin team-mate, to his sensei, to the Third, to all of those many people he'd loved and lost and no, it _wasn't_ okay, not at all. Biting hard on his tongue, he shook his head, and motioned for Kakashi to come up to the stone.

"I don't mind company while I remember," Iruka finally said, softly, eyes on the grass by the stone's edge instead of Kakashi's eyes. He didn't want to stay much longer since he'd spoken his prayers, but something told him that if he left, Kakashi would blame himself for it.

For a while they stood in silent vigil, lost in thoughts and bitter-sweet memories. The jounin broke the quiet first.

"If you don't mind the question," started Kakashi hesitantly, "who'd you lose?" A breeze picked up, and Iruka noticed how little it shifted the mess of silver hair on the jounin's head.

"Enough people to lose count," Iruka answered after a short pause with a thin smile. Being popular and friendly in a ninja village just meant more people to cry over, in the end. "Enough people to willingly quit active duty and work with children instead."

"Children run away, though," Kakashi breathed out the words, faint but discernable. "I almost think that's worse."

The chuunin was pretty sure that the Copy Cat Ninja wasn't talking about Iruka's students, but his own disbanded genin team. A trio of kites were flying far off in the distance; orange, pink and black. Three former students immediately popped into his head, and his chest suddenly felt heavy.

"Sasuke made his choice," Iruka said in a firm voice. "It is not your sin to bear." He'd said the exact same thing to Naruto, so many months ago—or had it been a year already? Time passed, slowly, but in lurches and lulls, so erratic Iruka sometimes just... lost track.

"Yet it marks my soul like any other atrocity." Bitterness dripped like poisonous venom from his voice, and hunched over, shoulders shoved deep in his pockets, Iruka could see the weight of so much awful experiences pulling the man down, aging him beyond his years.

Taking a deep breath, Iruka tried to think of an adequate response; if their roles were reversed, he wouldn't want empty condolences or pity. The chuunin finally settled on saying, "'_Dwelling on the unchangeable past does nothing for the future except dull its path_'."

"The Third, I take it?" Kakashi looked up at Iruka, face blank except for the fond almost-tilt of his visible eye.

"His words hold wisdom, even after death." Something caught at the back of his throat, and he coughed awkwardly to clear it, quickly looking away.

Turning to him, Kakashi said, "He spoke highly of you."

Iruka felt surprise bloom within himself upon hearing that the Third had discussed him to others with praise shadowing his words.

"He looked after me a lot, when my parents died." A pause where the wind echoed and Kakashi looked on with interest. "Kind-of like a surrogate father figure, I'd suppose."

"The Fourth looked after me like I was his own."

Iruka's eyebrows rose at the personal information seemingly easily divulged. Perhaps, if it were someone else, it'd be overlooked, but Iruka knew from lore and gossip of how private Hatake Kakashi was.

Like a light flicking on, Iruka suddenly recalled a snippet of information from some conversation he paid only half his attention to.

"Wasn't he your genin-team teacher?"

Nodding, Kakashi shifted uncomfortably before looking down at the stone again. Both men were quiet for a long moment after that, long enough that the slant of the sunlight shifted so it started to shine directly in their eyes from over the line of the canopy of trees.

Iruka noticed from the corner of his eye how the black kite fell while the orange and the pink one swayed in the light winds. A shiver ran through him. _It's coincidence, not providence._

The Copy-Nin turned to look at the chuunin, whose eyes were glazed as he frowned, deep in thought. Iruka noticed the attention, but was in a kind of haze that was hard to get out of.

"Have you had breakfast?"

Slightly shocked at the sound, the breaking of the peace, Iruka shook his head and confirmed that he hadn't eaten anything. Tilting his head, Kakashi smiled – or it looked like it did, the mask was stiff cotton and it was hard to truly tell.

"How about we head off for some now?" Kakashi asked. "It's getting a bit late in the morning."

Turning his head up at the skies, Iruka watched the procession of swirled and dotted white clouds for a moment. The pink kite fell and the orange dived to follow it. Neither came back up.

Finally, he shrugged and answered calmly, "I can't see why not."

When the pair turned to leave the area, Iruka gave one parting, furtive look to the forests, wondering why the child hadn't turned up the entire time. He was _sure_ that he was being led to the stone. So where was he?

Thoughts of the pursuit were pushed from his mind, later though, when Iruka was smiling and sharing a nice meal with Kakashi. The miso broth was a little bland and the rice was a bit too dry and overcooked, but the rich taste of the rolled omelette compensated somewhat, as did the interesting company he shared.

Kakashi turned out to be a very quiet and soft conversationalist. They didn't exactly match with a variety of things to talk about, but there was enough so that their exchange was engaging enough. Still, as with most dialogue between people who hardly knew each other, the conversation stalled awkwardly at times, and sometimes crossed unseen lines that faded speech into silence.

However, they were currently discussing Naruto, cobbling together the information they got from various letters penned in cramped, messy handwriting over the course of several months. Iruka barely noticed when he dropped formalities and the conversation took a more relaxed, friendly tone.

"So he told you he wooed a girl while on his travels—" Kakashi started, a faint laugh in his voice.

"—but he tells you that a girl slapped him for hitting on her," Iruka finished with a raised eyebrow, hiding a grin.

"Apparently, he still wants your approval," Kakashi said lightly, a nearly indiscernible fondness tinting his voice.

"He sees me as a father; or at the very least, an older brother," Iruka shrugged off the answer before taking a slightly-too-big bite of steamed fish, washing it down with scalding hot tea before he could choke on it.

"Doesn't that make you feel _old_?" Kakashi's face was braced on the palm of one hand, the other wielding a pair of chopsticks, waving it around vaguely at the chuunin.

"Look who's talking!" Iruka coloured red in indignation—or maybe that was thanks to the boiling tea he'd just sucked down.

"Hey," protested Kakashi with raised palms, "this is my _natural_ hair colour, I'll have you know."

"You can tell me if it isn't; I won't say a word to anyone else, you know."

Kakashi laughed – an earnest down-to-earth honest laugh that rumbled like an oncoming storm. "I swear that it's really naturally silver. The drapes match the carpet, as they sometimes say."

Iruka laughed heartily as he poured more tea for the both of them. A waitress passed their table and smiled at them politely. The atmosphere was light, teasing, and when they stood up to leave, it was almost a sad thing to have to part ways.

Without much fuss, they split the bill evenly between them, and walked out of the shop, Kakashi slouching, hands deep in his pockets, Iruka strolling out with hands braced behind his head.

"Thank you for the company, sensei," Kakashi said without prompt as they exited the door, the bright sunlight making both of them wince.

Iruka turned, shading his eyes from the light with a raised hand, and grinned. "Surprisingly, you're not as irritating as I thought you were."

"I'll ignore that for the most part and take it as a compliment," Kakashi huffed as he rolled his eye. Then he straightened up a bit, and cleared his throat. "I'm being deployed again on a mission this afternoon—"

"Are you up to that?" The question escaped Iruka before he could rein it in. It was an offensive thing to ask, to doubt the strength of another, but it wasn't spite that made him query the other's health, but concern.

In an apathetic shadow of a shrug, a weak lift of his left shoulder, Kakashi replied matter-of-factly, "I was discharged early because what I needed most was bed rest to replenish blood and chakra. It's been a week, and I need to complete the mission."

"The one I found you—" _dying from?_ The final words were on the tip of his tongue, but just because Kakashi overlooked his first brash of rudeness wouldn't mean he could be disrespectful another time. Shaking his head, he instead said, "Good luck then."

"I don't need— actually, I mean; thank you." Kakashi paused, as if weighing his words, and he slowly added, "Normally I don't... talk. Well, to the living, anyway. I wouldn't, mind doing this again later—if you want, of course."

Slightly stunned, but quick to recover, Iruka nodded and smiled with teeth. "I wouldn't mind that at all, Kakashi."

¥¥Y¥¥

Strawberries weren't in season, but somehow a battered stall had gotten some from Wave Country. They were a little smaller, a bit bruised, but they were still coloured a vibrant red, and the heady scent of the sweet treats made Iruka's mouth water.

His hands were already laden with bags of groceries, and though he'd stretched his weekly shopping allowance, the sight of the red fruit was so very tempting. As though trying to encourage him, his stomach growled.

A young child sidled up beside him and ordered two boxes of the berries while he mused the worth of breaking his budget for a little bit of luxury.

"That'll be a half-a-dozen silver pieces," said the pretty, young lady behind the till said to the small girl. Money changed hands, and Iruka was about to place his order (it was only a _small_ purchase, after all) when the girl asked in a squeaky voice:

"Would you like a box, Mr. Ninja?"

Surprised, Iruka looked down to see the toothless grin of a girl—most likely civilian—around the age of his own Academy students. Her violet hair was braided into countless little strands and freckles brushed her nose and checks. How she could wear a dress in the cold winter weather, Iruka didn't know, but then again, at her age, he favoured a lot of fishnet: a questionable fashion choice to say the least.

"I can get my own box, but thank you for offering." He smiled warmly before turning back to the shop keeper.

A tug on his pants made him look down again. The child's grin now held a wicked edge as she said, "But no, sweetie-pie. I _insist_ you take a box."

It was then the chuunin noticed the dango-shaped hairclips pinning back the girl's bangs. Iruka sighed in exasperation, shifting the bags he carried into one hand, to leave the other free to rub at his face.

"I've suddenly lost my appetite for strawberries," he muttered with a reluctant grin. "And to think, for a moment there you looked positively innocent."

"All innocence is temporary, Iruka."

"I wonder if yours ever existed to begin with."

The young girl rolled her eyes and pulled Iruka's pants leg again, leading him down the street. Once the crowds thinned a little, they stopped and Iruka tapped his foot on the snow-frosted ground almost impatiently.

A quick flash of clasped hands—the tiger seal, Iruka recognised—and the little girl transformed in a puff of smoke into Anko, familiar in all but her attire; she looked quite different with simple peasant clothes in blue hues, as opposed to her traditional mesh shirt. The feral grin was unchanging and as wicked as it usually was though.

"I'm stalking someone, and this was the most convenient way to go about it," she said as way of explanation.

Blunt in her total honesty, it was what some people considered unsettling about Anko, but Iruka just laughed and moved to ruffle her purple hair, wholly unsurprised when she easily ducked away from him. When she slid the packet of fruit in one of his overladen bags, he rolled his eyes but didn't protest. She'd conned him out of enough dumplings that he felt they were pretty even.

"Isn't it time you settle down and, I don't know," Iruka paused for a moment to think, "stop being so damned _crazy_?" Without thinking, he dodged the wooden blade thrown his way; Anko never wasted her real weapons on play fighting... most of the time, anyway.

Anko cackled and said, "To deny the insanity would be to deny my very nature. You wouldn't want that now, would you?"

Snorting, Iruka started walking home, Anko wordlessly joining his side, grabbing half of the bags to share the load. He considered questioning about whomever she was stalking, but decided against it. Her life was her life, and if she wanted to divulge or not would be perfectly fine with him. Since she was abandoning her guise, it didn't seem the target was anywhere in the vicinity.

"Look who's telling _me_, of all people, to settle down," Anko laughed derisively, a touch disbelievingly. "Iruka, you own your own apartment, you teach children without murdering them, and you aren't completely bonkers at this point in your career. You have the 'ninja family man' ideal set, sweetie-pie."

"What's that noise I hear?" Iruka cupped his ear and cocked his head to the side. "Oh! It's the ticking of your biological clock!"

Although he saw it coming, he allowed Anko to cuff him around the head for that jab. It _was_ a little underhanded, but he _hated_ being called 'sweetie-pie'.

"My clock ain't ticking 'til Ibiki realizes he needs a _real_ woman, instead of those red-light sluts he thinks can fill his needs." For a moment, Iruka vaguely wondered whether it was the stoic ANBU captain that Anko was watching over.

"Why not just tell him, instead of being such a bloody tease when you see him?" They turned left, out of the markets, and into the less populated area of the village. The sun was slowly setting over the distance, and the oranges and reds reminded him of autumn leaves. "Man's the head of _Torture and Intelligence_; he probably has more important things to worry over than his heart or his dick."

Grunting, Anko growled, "Me? Chase a man? Bullshit; I don't run after guys—they run after _me_. Or away from me, I'm not picky. Either way, I won't baby the bastard into seeing what's in front of his eyes." She hefted the plastic bag over her shoulder and huffed with her chin jutted out defiantly.

The words rang a bell in Iruka, but before he could remember from exactly where, Anko continued with, "On the topic of people you'd bed—" Iruka tried to protest that they weren't in fact discussing that _at all_, and was immediately ignored, "—how's Shizune working for you? Is it true she can tie five cherry stems together with her tongue?"

"What? Yes, I mean, _no_, but—yes, she can—but we're not; you can't think that we're _together_ or anything. She's not—we're not—like that, and how can you even..." Iruka trailed off his slightly flustered reaction, the surprise of the accusation flooding his cheeks with a warm red stain. Clearing his throat and ignoring Anko's single raised brow, he said firmly, "No, we're just friends."

Baring her teeth in a way that was a little too wild to be constituted as a friendly grin, Anko asked, "How do you know her little parlour trick then?"

"Same way I know what you can do with snakes and body oil." Iruka paused to shudder at the recollection. He really didn't need to know the details of her rather colourful and imaginative sex life. "Alcohol and a lot of time spent in the other's company."

"Aww, sweetie-pie, you're no fun at _all_," Anko whined as they walked by the _Ichiraku_ _Ramen_ shop, the owner, Teuchi, waving at Iruka as they passed him sweeping out front.

"You haven't dated anyone since that C-cup, blonde chuunin who was a little _too_ fond of knives, and you haven't flirted with anyone since your co-worker, Mizuki—"

"—who was a literal _back-stabbing_ bastard of a man, so thank whatever unseen power that exists that we didn't turn out as anything more."

Waving her hand, Anko said airily, "Details. Pfft. Anyway, it's been years since you've got some proper action."

"That I tell you about," Iruka muttered under his breath. He jostled the bags he had as he checked his pockets for his keys; they were nearing his apartment block and it always took him a while to find the blasted things. For some reason, he always misplaced them until the very last moment before he reached his door.

Anko looked at Iruka disbelievingly as his head was ducked. "Red-light district, really? I never took you to be the type."

"Bitch," snarled Iruka as he patted his vest pockets for the illusive keys. "I love how highly you think of me. One night stands would have been a more logical jump for most people, you know."

"I'm not—"

"—'most people'? Thank goodness for that."

"Yeah; I don't think the world could handle much more of me."

Iruka couldn't reply; the handles of the plastic bags were held by his teeth as he used both hands to frantically search and empty his pockets. They were walking up the stairs of his apartment block and just before they'd entered the building, the sun had set.

"Okay, now don't change the subject," Anko finally said after pausing to contemplate a world with a copy of her in it. Judging by her grin, it was either really bad or really, _really_ bad. "Why aren't you being your old bachelor self and trying out all the flavours before being stuck with one?"

"I don't know," Iruka answered honestly, now holding his bags instead of biting the handles. They reached the third floor, and moved to Iruka's door. "Maybe I'm tired of the game."

"Maybe there ain't enough attractive pieces to play," Anko mused as Iruka finally shouted in quiet exultance over the mysterious appearance of his house keys. Entering the familiar and cosy home, Iruka toed off his sandals and moved to the kitchen.

Setting the shopping bags on the diminutive dining table that was next to the equally minute kitchen, Iruka stretched his arms and said, "If you can find me someone that can keep my attention, then by all means, go ahead and hook me up."

"Perhaps later," Anko smirked as her brown eyes glowed with a depraved gleam. She reached into one of the bags and pulled out a bright red apple. "I'll take this for the road. I've got sentry duty on the east side tonight."

"You're normally not scheduled on Saturdays, though," Iruka replied with a touch of confusion in his tone. He would know, of course. He was part of the team that worked out the rosters for the work.

"Lady Tsunade is worried about the increase in ninja murders around the area and wants more guards posted at all the main gate points," Anko explained around a mouthful of fruit.

"This means double-time for a lot of chuunin after a jounin sweep-through, am I right?"

"Can't be helped, sweetie-pie."

"Why are you eating an apple? You _hate_ apples."

She threw the red orb into the air, catching it again with the same hand in an almost absentminded gesture. "I never said I _hated_ apples. But apparently Ibiki _loathes_ them."

"Please don't tell me—"

"I'll see you later," she interrupted quickly, grinned wickedly around another bite.

With a brief peck on the cheek, Anko left his apartment, and only on her departure did Iruka notice that she hadn't even removed her footwear before entering. She really needed to relearn some basic manners, he thought with a scowl on his face and a faint fondness in his mind.

Upon unpacking his groceries, Iruka came across the surprise discovery of a pack of condoms next to his strawberries. He was a tiny bit perturbed that she knew his size, but for Anko, it was half-way expected of her.

¥¥Y¥¥

It was Sunday morning, and Iruka had all but forgotten about the boy until he was pouring his daily cup of tea. Would he be confronted over breakfast for seemingly abandoning the game?

His thoughts naturally seemed to drift off to the memories of yesterday, mainly prevalent being his time spent with the Copy-Nin. He was surprisingly human, for a legend, Iruka thought to himself.

"You won this round of the game." The voice didn't startle him, but the words did. _How did he win?_ Looking up, he saw the glare of the goggles staring down at him, and his stomach jumped as he realized that even after all this time, he hadn't seen past the goggles and into the kid's eyes. It was unsettling in a way he couldn't put his finger on.

"But I didn't catch you." Iruka felt like he was on odd footing by the sudden turn of events. "Technically, I lost the game of tag."

As if ignoring him, the boy-child said, "Call me... Bito, Iruka-sensei."

"Hito?" Naming a child that was like naming your pet dog, 'dog', or your pet cat, 'cat'. It was quite ridiculous.

"No, _Bito_," the spiky-haired child stressed. "But, if it makes you more comfortable, then by all means, call me Tabi-Bito instead. I don't mind."

"Your parents named you 'Traveller'?"

"No and yes."

"Isn't it normally, 'Yes and no'?"

"Well, yeah. But do I look normal to you?"

The chuunin couldn't deny that the boy was a little on the odd side of life. Then again, so were most ninja.

"Well, it's nice to finally know who you are, Bito." Iruka stretched his hand out for a handshake.

"Just because you know what to call me, sensei, doesn't mean you know who I am," Bito laughed, with an edge to the sound. "Keep your eyes open to what only the blind can see."

With those enigmatic words, the boy disappeared in a swirl of wind and dust—without making hand signs either—and Iruka was left thoroughly confused, his outstretched hand left hanging, and somehow colder than before.

**¥¥Y¥¥**

**A/N: The poem found on the stone is actually the Kohima Epitaph on a war memorial. It broke my heart the first time I read it (while I was researching Burma and its politics, inevitably I stumbled across its war).**

**Reviews would be loved (and snuggled and fed constantly until they're really fat and only lounge around comfortably in front of the fireplace).**


	3. Taste and Smell

**A/N: In my want to avoid original characters, I checked up some obscure chuunin characters and used their names, appearances, and worked as much as I could from their scant information to provide a believable, tangible personality. And then I realized they went sort of into OC-land anyway. *Sigh*. I tried, I really did.**

**Disclaimer: I play with the characters and the setting, but I have no rights, nor do I make profit from this. **

**¥¥Y¥¥**

The Academy was usually known for its noise; after all, it was partly a school, partly a day-care centre, and played host to some of the most mentally unstable children the village had to offer. And jounin thought they had their work cut out _killing_ people. Not turning murderous when faced day in-and-out with little rug-rats intent on destroying all order into a mess of unrecognisable chaos required a patience that could stretch across continents.

Anyway, the usually exuberant school yard was silent with a blanket ban on noise. The students, having just been taught rudimentary field shorthand, were given the task of not talking for the rest of the day, instead working on the sign language to better prepare them for the real world. The teachers congratulated whoever had put that particular detail on the curriculum so long ago, because it was one of the few times in the year when the students would willingly fall silent during their classes and lunches.

If only it would last all the time, Iruka mused to himself as he walked around the grounds, correcting students here and there, especially when he noticed rather large gaps in correct grammar. Iruka had once heard of a mission where the cell-captain had given the orders to _kill without question_, but had slipped on one of the end signs and changed the order to _question without kills_. The orders were followed without hesitation, and half the squad was slaughtered for the leader's mistake. On his watch, Iruka swore he wouldn't let his students die for something so trivial.

When he was fairly certain that the kids weren't wholly incompetent in their grasp of field shorthand, and when he noticed some of the more confident students were helping the others, Iruka moved quickly to the Academy's staff room to eat a hurried lunch. He went to the effort of packing a nice lunch for today, and he fully intended on enjoying it. Especially since making the lunch made him miss out on his early morning tea which started his day off on a bad, grumpy note; one which his students thankfully noted and acted accordingly.

Upon entering the teacher's lounge, he was accosted by the level of noise, which—after being in the presence of dead silence for several hours—seemed unnaturally obscene. Everyone noticed his entry; they were trained chuunin, after all; but none moved in surprise or agitation at his appearance, in fact acting like there'd been no disturbance at all, so he moved to one of the unoccupied chairs, uncomfortable with their hard, wooden backs, and sat down to eat. Most of the other teachers were more pre-occupied with their conversations than their lunch, so Iruka dined alone.

As Iruka was halfway done eating the lightly steamed fish that was cold and tangy with soy sauce, Hijiri Shimon quietly sidled up from a window and took up the once-empty space beside him.

Iruka didn't mind the man's company; a few people were irked by the way he carried a slightly odd accent, emphasising the odd vowel in a not unpleasant way, and his occasional use of strange words that touched on overly formal. It reminded them of how Hijiri's family came from another village – not another ninja village, simply another civilian village from on the borders of Fire Country. It was different and therefore treated with automatic suspicion.

However, Iruka respected the man for his strength – he walked with a firm gait, yet when no one was looking, the chuunin was sure he'd seen his co-worker limp from an old injury. That, and he'd never let the whispers get to him. Iruka wondered how he'd fare if his family were foreigner to Konoha and if he were constantly questioned over it. Certainly his outlook on life would be a little more cynical.

Pale as ever, eyes seemingly forever hidden by bangs far too long, Shimon was something of a constant to Iruka. Although they were of similar ages, the other had joined the Academy first and was by default his superior. Of course, now they'd been working alongside each other for many years, but Iruka still grew amazed by the level of deference Shimon had over his own class. Then again, Iruka usually got the short straw and was stuck with the troublesome children; the geniuses, the vengeful, the especially eccentric—and even the demon-host.

"Umino," said the lanky chuunin as way of greeting, stretching his thin and long arms above his head, grinning as his spine cracked a few times with the contortion. "Why are you sitting all by yourself?"

"Because I'm eating and no one else is," Iruka answered with a shrug, taking another bite of his meal, wishing he'd added more fish to the box. Soon he'd have all rice and no sides and it'd be a plain meal indeed.

"That's quite the travesty, Umino," Hijiri hummed as he pulled a small flask from his vest and drank deeply from it. Iruka could smell the scent of herbal tea coming from it; the man knew better than to carry in alcohol to a pre-genin school, let alone drink it here. "I can't let this pass unnoticed; so I'm afraid you'll just have to suffer my company for a while."

Smiling and shaking his head, Iruka replied, "Don't you normally harass the trainee at this point?" His chopsticks were absentmindedly messing the rice around his bento box as he talked.

"Do you mean Mozuku? Me, harass him? _Never_," Shimon stressed in that overly innocent way that simply screamed incrimination. "I am offended by the accusation! Anyway, he's on ground duties at the moment." Other teachers who were half-listening to their conversation laughed at that comment—even if they weren't entirely warm towards Shimon, it was hard to favour the new chuunin-teacher.

Mozuku was a dull eyed, fresh chuunin graduate, just touching 19 years of age. Pale as Shimon, they could pass for brothers, but once you took away Mozuku's glasses, you would see how his bright blue eyes could never match Shimon's rarely seen dark brown ones. If you were ever to see Mozuku without his forehead protector wrapped around his skull in a snug bandana, then his early on-set baldness contradicted heavily with Shimon's long locks of russet brown.

Not to mention, as kind as Shimon normally was, Mozuku usually came off abrasive and bitter. As a student-teacher at the Academy, he was rather hot-headed and seemed to dislike children. Scrupulous about rules, the uptight attitude lost him a lot of points from the other adults at the Academy.

Anko had once mentioned going on a mission with the young man before—more like the words had slipped her radar and past her notice to care. Iruka strongly suspected Mozuku was a member of ANBU or would soon be. No normal chuunin went on the missions Anko took.

"I hear I'm going to get a trainee next year," Iruka commented after a hearty chuckle that painted a wide smile on his face, bunching his scar up at the ends.

"Oh, apparently you're getting a Nara."

"Shikamaru?" There was an affirmative nod. Shimon wasn't widely liked, but he had connections in the right places and seemed to know things a while ahead of time. "He'd a good lad; I taught him as a pre-genin."

"You've got your work set out for you though," Shimon said with a touch of sympathy sent his way. "Teachers need to be prepared to run after students. I can't see any Nara running for anything other than a zone-red crisis."

"I don't disagree," admitted Iruka as he pushed his empty lunchbox from him, leaning back in his chair, "but Shikamaru's smart. He'd probably rig traps to keep them from getting too far."

"If only the Third didn't ban that," sighed Shimon wistfully; "we'd still be doing it otherwise."

Iruka laughed as the door burst open with an angry bang. Mozuku stormed in with purple paint splatters down his crisp, ironed uniform and shaking hands that kept twitching at his weapons holster strapped to his thigh, instead moving to wipe the still wet paint from his glasses with a clean patch of fabric.

"What the heck happened to you?" one of the teachers finally asked, breaking the curious, cautious silence following the young chuunin's appearance.

Nothing was said in response, and Shimon eyed the man warily; after judging that the killing intent was getting reigned in and strongly muted, he nodded. Turning to Iruka, he commented under his breath, "Shimon has this nasty habit of signing insults to students to keep from screaming at them."

Raising an eyebrow, Iruka said casually, "Mozuku, didn't anyone tell you that we taught the children rudimentary field shorthand, or were you too above everyone else to read and memorize the curriculum?"

Patches of faint pink bloomed on the skin that wasn't stained purple and the teachers chuckled. Instead of the blowout some of the adults were expecting, Mozuku replaced his glasses and smiled—he actually formed a natural smile and said modestly, "I suppose I earned that one."

"Children are bastards, the lot of 'em," remarked one of the older chuunin. "No wonder parents shirk 'em off to us."

Finally the babble of conversation flowed once more around the room and no one ran further commentary about Mozuku's misfortunes. Iruka smiled and waved over the chuunin—clapping him on the back as Shimon lazily offered him a swig of some herbal tea from his flask; laughing when he asked for something far, far stronger.

Being humiliated and humbled by children was a rite of passage for the Academy teachers. Whilst Mozuku would no doubt continue being a trite bastard for the most part, the brat was one of them now.

¥¥Y¥¥

"Run around a ku_nai_, a pocket full of sharp _knives_—a cut here, a cut there; we all fall _down_!"

The children left the Academy laughing and singing a twisted rendition of the old nursery rhyme 'Ring a-round a-rosie'. Iruka smiled though, even though the song was as morbid as hell, it showed the kids were still naive enough to play. It was when they wouldn't sing and laugh when he would begin to worry; and then later steel himself against their changed personality. The career path of a ninja did that to children.

Iruka was swiftly packing his things away, with an efficiency that belied habit. When he felt a chakra flare at the door—the ninja version of a knock—Iruka didn't look up, merely saying, "Give me a minute." There was another flare of chakra, a touch more irritated if you could judge by the added spark at the points.

Stowing away graded papers and a stack of test questionnaires for the next lesson, Iruka slung over his head a infinitely light work bag and looked up to see Hagane Kotetsu leaning against the doorframe, foot tapping impatiently on the floor as he waited for Iruka to finish.

Kotetsu looked like he always did; albeit his hair was a little shorter and the spikes a little more curved after a small mishap with a fire jutsu. Thankfully hair grew back quick—the trees that burned down would take perhaps a decade to return to their former glory. The bandage around his nose and cheeks was changed from its atypical white cloth to a soft baby blue for the occasion, Iruka noticed.

"Ready?" he asked hurriedly, moving toward the window to make a traditional exit before Iruka tugged at his arm and moved him back to the door with a laugh.

"He's not going to run away in the _ten minutes_ you've been gone," reasoned Iruka calmly as they walked; Kotetsu an impatient two steps ahead. "You know that, right?"

"It's Izumo's birthday; I want it to be special."

"Is that why I'm going?"

"Ha ha, aren't you the comedian tonight?" the man said bluntly. Kotetsu normally would've been the one laughing at the poor, fretting soul, so Iruka couldn't help but twist his arm a bit – figuratively, of course.

"Well, I aim to please," Iruka said as he shrugged the bag on his shoulder a little more comfortably.

"I hate you so much right now," Kotetsu grumbled under his breath.

"Isn't Izumo meant to be the thoughtful one of the two of you?" Iruka queried lightly with a shadow of a smile he knew would irk the other man to no end.

"Screw you, Umino!" exclaimed Kotetsu with a huff. "I can make an effort if I want to. Unlike _some_ anti-social people."

"Oh, I'm not anti-social," the shorter chuunin replied smoothly, "I just hate you."

"Thanks—you're too kind." Voice dripping with sarcasm, Kotetsu hurried his pace and seemed a little annoyed when Iruka kept in step without any trouble.

"_Some_ of us have to make Hidden Leaf look good, you know."

"Thankfully they have me, then."

Iruka snorted and received a playful shove to his shoulder as they left the Academy. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky as they walked down the beaten track of the marketplace. Hagane was asking whether Iruka how he was faring being a dull paper-pusher to which Umino countered by asking Kotetsu how he enjoyed being the lapdog of Lady Tsunade. Their carefree teasing and laughter rang through the stalls of the market.

Their relationship had always been like that – ever since they fought against each other in their chuunin exams (and Iruka lost), they played the game of like and hate. Izumo had often had to act as a buffer between the two when their arguments breeched that of the friendly realm and weapons were drawn out. Yet even with all that, they had a deep comradely connection between them. Not that either man would _ever_ admit to that.

By the time they reached the main gates, Izumo was signing off his shift to a pair of fresh-eyed chuunin—and when he saw Iruka and Kotetsu he laughed and grinned with teeth. His fringe that covered one side of his face was a fair bit shorter too, but that was because Kotetsu somehow got glue in that a few weeks back and it needed to be cut out. Iruka was still slightly paranoid that his ponytail was next in line to be hit by the wrath of Kotetsu; but thankfully the man had a short attention span.

"Happy birthday, you sorry bastard," Kotetsu slapped the other man merrily on his back. Izumo slapped away the other's hand when Hagane tried to rip off his forehead protector that worked as a bandanna for his hair.

"Get off me, you giant ignoramus."

"Big word, Izumo. I guess with great age comes with it great wisdom," Kotetsu said sagely as he wrapped a friendly arm around Izumo's shoulders, steering him and Iruka to where ever he planned to take them. "I just wanted to check for gray hairs and all. You are getting _old_ after all."

Iruka raised an eyebrow and pointed out, "Kotetsu, you're older than Izumo, you do realize that, right?"

"Details," the bandaged chuunin waved off the comment. "Anyway, with my superior genes, I have years of youth—"

"Unless you want to protégé for Gai, I'd shut your trap right there," Izumo said quickly, just as Iruka added, "Green spandex would _not_ suit you."

As the trio walked the streets of Hidden Leaf at a relaxed, leisurely pace, Iruka suddenly wondered what was in store for tonight. As if mirroring his thoughts, Izumo asked, "Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise," Kotetsu said mysteriously. The lights of the night stores were starting to turn on as the rays of the sun turned from brilliant yellow to auburn-orange.

Iruka laughed and said, "I think that means he hasn't planned that far ahead."

Kotetsu growled a denial and half-heartedly aimed to hit one of Iruka's pressure points, though the chuunin-sensei stepped out of the attack range easily before falling in step again with Izumo.

"Here we are," the spiky-haired chuunin finally said. They stopped in front of a building that was sinking into the ground, making it lean towards the west.

"It's your apartment block," Izumo stated bluntly with a touch of confusion. "I thought you'd take me to a bar or something." His tone was confused, but there wasn't displeasure in it, either.

Running a hand through his hair, Kotetsu replied bashfully, "I like the bar scene far more than you enjoy it, and you begrudge me that all the time. It's about time I did something you liked."

"How'd you figure I'd like a quiet night in with friends?"

"I haven't been your mission partner for five years and not picked up on things like that," Kotetsu said as he led the other two up a rickety staircase. "Heck, I even got you some of that terrible, bitter green-tea cake crap that you always seem to like."

Umino muttered in a stage-whisper, "D'you think Kotetsu's been kidnapped and this guy is an imposter?" Iruka deftly caught and pocketed the throwing star aimed his way by Hagane and remarked, "You've got to do better than that to catch an Academy teacher off guard."

"Then don't bloody accuse me of being an imposter simply because I'm trying to be nice for once. Am I that awful?"

After Kotetsu finished talking, there was a telling pause that made Iruka chuckle lightly under his breath.

Pulling down the edge of the mask that caught on his chin, Izumo grinned and replied, "I don't really care if that's the case. A replacement doesn't sound too bad. With this one's helpful, nice-guy attitude, I might actually be able to complete paperwork on time."

"With friends like you, I don't need enemies," Kotetsu complained loudly as he pushed his apartment door open. "I should've just given you ten gold pieces and taken you to the _Scarlet Sun_ and brush my hands of this. But _no_, I make an effort and get ridiculed for it."

They removed their footwear and made it to the lounge, where Kotetsu momentarily disappeared to come back with the aforementioned cake and some light cherry sake.

"Crap," Iruka widened his eyes theatrically. "He even got you your favourite drink. Did he get brainwashed on his last mission?"

Izumo paused as if to think it over. "Maybe; he went to Stone and those bastards are pretty fucked up..."

The puzzled neighbours only heard the sounds of crashing plates and laughter for the next half-hour following. Overall, the night was a good one, and Izumo even got a birthday wish once they'd hog-tied Kotetsu long enough to have used a muted fire jutsu—unnecessary as there were matches, but oh well—to light the candles.

¥¥Y¥¥

"Wake up."

Iruka stirred blearily, his eyes searching for the dented clock by his bedside, and groaned as he saw it ticking over to 3 o'clock—in the morning if the darkness was anything to go by. The chuunin smelled ice and frost in the air, and figured it had snowed while he'd slept.

Something cold touched his nose and for a split second Iruka wondered whether he'd left his window open and the snowflakes were floating in, but then he fully opened his eyes and yelped at seeing his own face being reflected back at him from the glass of black-tinted glass.

His heartbeat had leapt at the shock, but it calmed in the next second as Iruka realized it was simply Bito looking down at him, eyes undiscernible as usual with the orange-framed goggles.

"Are you awake?"

Clearing his hoarse throat, Iruka replied, "If I say 'no', will you leave me alone and let me _sleep_?"

Bito bit his bottom lip as he paused to think. "Probably not."

"Then, yes," Iruka sighed as he rubbed at his tired eyes. "I suppose I'm awake now."

He felt trashed, even though he didn't drink much at Kotetsu's—then again, he wasn't entirely sure that the cake he ate wasn't spiked with something. There was a lingering taste of bitter tea in the back of his throat mixed with something else. Running a tongue over his front teeth, he felt a strong desire to brush his them and shower.

But first, there was the more important matter of asking, "How the hell did you get in my apartment without setting off all the traps?"

Bito moved back slightly, as if surprised. "I'd come here for almost a fortnight, and you only wonder _now_ how I get in?" If he weren't so tired, Iruka might have considered bristling at the condescending tone. As it were, all the man did was yawn loudly.

Shaking his head, the teacher then explained, "You come in by the window when I'm eating breakfast; every time it's been like that. If I wasn't there, the chakra sensors of the traps would have listed you as an intruder and sprung. With me sleeping, the same should have happened."

"Are you sure about that?"

At the coy tone of the child, Iruka forced one tired eye open to scrutinise his early morning visitor.

"Pretty sure, yeah," Iruka mumbled as he rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. "Since you didn't slit my throat or anything, I'll let it pass. Next time—though may the Heavens forbid you wake me up this early again—can you use the doorbell?"

"Duly noted," Bito waved off concerns with a tone that didn't particularly drive faith in him.

Sitting up, the coverlet surrounding Iruka slipped down and the chill of the cold air surrounded him, making him wish his night clothes were thicker. At least the crisp frost was waking him up, and he stretched languidly.

"So, Bito; what can I do for you this fine morning?"

"I would like to meet you atop the Hokage Monument at noon."

"And you couldn't tell me at a more reasonable hour because...?"

"Not sure." There was laughter in the young man's voice.

Groaning, Iruka resisted the urge to flop back on the mattress and curl back into sleep-mode. Instead, he kicked off the rest of the blankets and touched the cold timber of the floorboards with his feet.

"What's so important at noon?"

"Patience, sensei, and you can see for yourself."

Iruka's frustrated growl fell on deaf ears – well, no ears at all, because Bito disappeared into thin air.

Only later, after he'd showered and brushed, did Iruka realize how calm he acted. Someone broke and entered his apartment; someone who was surprisingly bossy and manipulative for some yet unknown reason; someone who was essentially a stranger no matter how much they talked.

Thinking things over, the conversations they usually shared was more Iruka talking and Bito listening than vice-versa.

A shiver went down Iruka's spine. He'd been off-field far too long if he'd been slacking his guards so drastically. Yet standing in his kitchen, he still wasn't worried. He couldn't bring himself to be overly worried. Was it because the boy was merely a child?

_When I see him later, I'm going to demand some answers_, Iruka thought firmly to himself, resolving to get to the bottom of things. Though a small part of him recognized the high chances of being challenged to another absurd game of tag.

Berating himself regardless for flagging paranoia, Iruka started cooking eggs in a battered old pan.

Iruka could only ever cook three things that didn't come out of a package with labelled instructions; chicken and/or fish with rice, variations on eggs and a bland watery-seafood-noodle concoction. Today, he craved something warm and since he was out of tea leaves _and_ bags, he couldn't believe his luck; and so scrambled eggs came in a close second.

Since he'd woken up so early, he got ready for work at a slow pace, partly fuelled by the left-over lethargy of having practically no sleep the night prior. His students noticed he was tired, and seemed to thrive that morning, attempting several times to take advantage of their lagging home-room teacher.

For the most part, the chuunin let the smarter, subtler kids get away with a few things, but when one of the younger students tried to sneak out of the classroom _in plain sight_, Iruka teleported a foot in front of the boy, grabbed him around the collar and transported right back to the front of the class.

When the boy steadied himself against the slightly unsettling feeling of double companion-teleportation, Iruka barked, "Recite the signs of recognising an illusion and how to break out of it."

At the open mouth about to protest, Iruka shot him a _look_, one that said, _don't even bother_, and the child swallowed heavily before listing slowly, cautiously, in that way that made it obvious he didn't study—

"—to escape an illusion, you, umm... you bite your tongue- or something, because, err – because pain is a reminder!"

"A reminder of what?" prompted the chuunin with a raised eyebrow. The class was watching with bated breath to see if their classmate would stuff up. Iruka was actually fun to watch getting angry – unless you were the target of his fury.

"A reminder o-of, o-of—umm—reality?"

Smiling, Iruka said, "If you can get rid of that stutter, you'd do well in infiltration work, because you can pull believable bull—I mean; believable _lies_ from thin air. You got some of the signs wrong, but worded them well enough to pass."

The child blinked back up at the chuunin in disbelief at the praise. He snapped back to attention when Iruka ordered him back to his seat though.

Umino wasn't lying though – the child was a quick thinker. He made a mental note to recommend the child to undergo some extra training, perhaps as a protégé to a reconnaissance major.

The bell called out for the ten-'til-noon lunch period, and the class exited in a mass of babbling, excited children. Iruka, instead of following them to pass the teacher's lounge, grabbed his bento and made to jump from his class window to the branch conveniently placed outside.

The Hokage Monument was close enough that Iruka didn't even break a sweat getting there. Actually, the stroll through the forest was calming enough to subdue the growing headache he'd been experiencing.

On top of the Third's head, he ate a light meal of rice and leftover eggs from his breakfast. Wetting his lips with some water he'd the foresight to bring, Iruka entertained himself by whistling some simple bird calls. His father was a master of birdcalls, but only had enough time to show Iruka some of the simpler notes.

Still, it was enough to occasionally get a response from the wildlife, and it was enough to make Iruka smile and remember fond memories.

Pulling out his battered silver pocket-watch attached to his vest by a thin chain, Iruka saw it was nearing the time when Academy students would be making their way back to class.

"Damn him, he's late."

"I do hope you're not talking about me, because I was never invited."

Iruka froze instinctively, long ago trained out of jumping. A small section of his consciousness registered the action and cursed it. If he was on heavy field work, he wouldn't have even changed his demeanour. Stiffening his entire body was a slip that could've killed him on a mission. Mentally, he noted to train some more – later though.

After he'd addressed the fact that Kakashi was suddenly lounging beside him with the air of a relaxed and comfortable cat.

"Kakashi, what are you doing here?" His words were casual enough, but Iruka still seemed unable to fully rid himself of his polite tone.

"I could ask you the same thing," the jounin replied as he brushed some dirt off his shoulder. "Since you'll read this later, I'd suppose in a report, I'll tell you that I've come back from that mission. Total bust; can't seem to find the bastards anywhere – they'd gotten disturbingly quiet."

"They say it's the quietest before the storm."

"I'll gladly bring the lightning."

Iruka chuckled. Naruto, and later, Sasuke in the chuunin practicals, had filled him in on Kakashi's rather spectacular abilities with concentrating his chakra into rather revolutionary jutsu. He'd taught enough geniuses to know that once a genius, always a genius.

"Aren't you meant to be looking after some wannabe-ninja brats?"

"It's not my round to look after them in lunch duty today, praise the deities."

"Huh." The Copy-Nin tilted his head to the side with a look of mild curiosity. "I'd pegged you as a mother hen."

"I'm more a sadist than a doting parent," the chuunin admitted unashamedly. "There's nothing like a little fear and public humiliation to help you remember how to throw a kunai."

"Nice. Seems our teaching policies don't differ that much then."

"_I_ don't send kids out when they're not ready," Iruka snapped.

Whoa. Where'd _that_ come from? They were talking calmly enough. A flash of echoed irritated heated up his gut, and a shadow of a memory passed through him; the chunnin exam nominations. Iruka thought he didn't hold grudges, but apparently, he did. Part of him was seething at the comparison of his own teaching skills to that of the jounin's.

"I thought it'd been established that Team 7 _was_ ready," Kakashi's voice became deadpan cold, "but I shouldn't have put them through the test anyway."

"Please, pardon me. I was out of line." Formalities were back. So was the stiff tone. He didn't think they'd need to be back, but apparently Iruka had a little too much fire on his tongue which he couldn't keep in check.

Kakashi turned his face away – a pointless action, because his mask was on, the one of the cloth, and the one that made his eye go as flat as marble slate.

"Never mind, sensei." Hatake's voice became dull; indifferent. "I'll leave you be now so you can wait for your guest."

And even before Iruka could reply—to defend, to protest, he wasn't sure—the jounin had disappeared without any smoke to indicate he was even there. Only the sudden silence of the wildlife showed something was up.

The young chuunin was left with a hollow sensation and the strangest feeling he'd somehow fucked something up.

¥¥Y¥¥

"Where were you?" Iruka asked Bito, who was walking around his ceiling with chakra-infused feet aiding him along.

The boy continued his upside-down stroll, stretching his arms high above his head – or was that below his head, with the way things were turned around?

Regardless, there was a heavy paused before Bito replied, "You looked busy, sensei, talking to that strange looking ninja."

"He's not strange," Iruka defended without thinking. The words left his tongue, but he quickly recovered by adding, "Especially in comparison to some of the gems Leaf can create. I should introduce you to some of the others in the village. Anko would _love_ you. She's fond of scaring brats."

"So I'm a brat now?" His tone was bemused, as if the thought was familiar and somehow comforting.

"I suggest you take that as a term of affection rather than anything else."

"Anyway, getting back on track," Bito said as he passed the main ceiling light, "I thought I was meant to meet up with you at noon."

"It was an unscheduled interruption, believe me," muttered Iruka as he moved a small pile of paperwork to his left and began editing some drafts of his pre-genin students.

"Well, I may be a brat, but I am anything but impolite enough to interrupt a conversation."

"For some reason, I don't believe that."

"I am _devastated_, sensei," a childish frown became present on the boy's face. "How could you say that?"

"Easily; I have a tongue and a set of lungs, don't I?"

"One that cracks like a whip and a pair that bellows like a gale," remarked Bito as he transferred the chakra to his hands and flipping around, essentially doing a handstand with his body the right way 'round on the ceiling.

Iruka paused in his markings, the red ink starting to stain his fingers. It was casual and offhand, but... _his mother used to say something similar about his grandfather_.

That thought, and the odd feeling of warped déjà vu that followed, prompted him to say in a no-bullshit-tone, "I need some answers."

Bito jumped down from his spot up high, and landed with a soundless grace on the timber floor. Exhaling heavily, he said, "For that, I'll probably need some questions."

"Are you a danger to me or Konoha?" Iruka rattled off without pause. Best start off with something important that he was pretty sure he'd established, but some re-enforcement wouldn't go astray.

Bito threw himself on the couch next to Iruka, and the dip in the seat was practically imperceptible; _what was this kid – some kind of lightweight?_

"If I was, I wouldn't say 'yes', now would I?" The grin was as wide as it was infuriating. He'd do well as an interrogator, if the child so wished to pursue such a career.

"Just tell me," Iruka sighed heavily, capping his pen and putting it away, along with his many papers. Those could wait.

"No," Bito admitted after a long pause. "I am the least threatening thing you could cross at the moment. Now, if you switch the word to 'manipulative', then that's another world _entirely_."

Strangely enough, instead of being unsettled, Iruka merely laughed. He couldn't disagree to that statement. Though the idea he was being played was filed away for later contemplation.

"Do you always wear goggles?" Iruka asked as the younger male's black tinted glass flashed white from the glare of the lights.

"Yes. I've got an eye injury, so it needs covering."

"How come you wear ninja clothes but don't appear on Academy records?" It was a somewhat petty inquiry that had been bugging Iruka for a while. Civilians usually did all they can to be clearly identified as 'civilian' as opposed to 'ninja'.

Bito looked confused, but there was a teasing hint in his face that screamed mischief. "How come you thought I gave you my name?"

"But you yourself said it was," Iruka pointed out slowly.

"Think back. Did I ever say the word 'name' in that exchange? I merely informed you of what to call me."

Thinking back, Iruka saw the boy was right. There wasn't a lie, merely a twisting of the truth. If Bito ever needed a recommendation to the _Reconnaissance and Misinformation_ department, Iruka would write the letter himself.

"I concede that fact," Iruka finally said, his voice halting as he chose his next words. "So can you give me a reason?"

"I _am_ on the records, but you can't access the files without using my full name specifically, and I'm not quite inclined to tell you that yet. It'd be more fun for you to find out... using some round-a-bout means."

"What's that even mean?" groaned Iruka as he slumped back on the couch.

"The fun's in finding out, isn't it?" The annoying part was that the excitement in the boy's voice was anything but faked.

Suppressing a weary sigh, the chuunin persevered, "Why are you here?"

"I'm here to help a friend in dire need; and perhaps save a life. Depends what I've got on my schedule," Bito replied dismissively, waving his hand as if it were of no concern.

Iruka briefly entertained the thought of continuing that line of thought, but he knew it would give him nothing but another headache. "Where do you come from?"

"Man, I know you're somewhat naive, but there are some things I thought they covered in basic Academy sex-education—"

"Firstly, I resent that 'naive' comment, and secondly, I ask for some seriousness."

"I come from Leaf Village, and that's all you'll be getting from me."

Rolling his eyes, Iruka asked, "How old are you, anyway? If you've gotten the sex-ed talk, that means you're at least—"

"Thirteen."

"Does that mean—"

"I'm a chuunin. Fresh graduate. Well, I _was_."

Iruka couldn't explain the sorrow. His own, the boy's. It was just inexplicable sadness. It suddenly weighed the room down like a wet blanket.

"I'm feeling a bit lost here," Iruka muttered. "It was one thing for a strange child to be pestering me, but a chuunin graduate? What the hell's going on?"

"Trust me. It'll be clear in the end." And there was an earnestness that marked a truth and a childish naivety that was hard to say no to.

"I swear on my _life_," Bito added on the end; Iruka didn't understand the strange laughter that followed it though.

**¥¥Y¥¥**

**A/N: I'm thinking of just making Kotetsu and Izumo good friends in this story as opposed to the slash couple they're normally portrayed as. I love stories with a whole bunch of slash pairings, but sometimes I want to step back a little and realize that not everyone would be gay in reality. But, I won't stop you reading them as a couple. ^_^**

**If it's not too much trouble, I'd love some feedback. :-)**


	4. All Wrong Now

**A/N: Some people might want to know where I get all the elemental-affinities from. Mostly, I find canon-listings like Narutopedia; if I can't find it there, then I work with the official playing cards ('cause they normally have an affinity listed in the corner with the character). I've yet to need the nature-affinity of a character that doesn't have a card. I do twist it a bit sometimes though (ie. Shimon is listed as water, but I also gave him earth).**

**Disclaimer: Just for fun, not for profit.**

**¥¥Y¥¥**

There were birds singing outside his window which meant no odd ninja lurking there, and no one left in the Mission Room apart from the workers.

"Finally," Iruka exhaled heavily in relief, slumping back in his chair. "Rush hour is over," he called out with a slightly raised voice. The groans and cries of thankful relief mingled around the room, making the teacher smile.

He was always tired after taking an early morning shift in the Mission Room. There were two major rush hours – dusk and dawn, simply because ninja liked getting the reports out of the way as soon as they could, and the setting or rising of the sun was when they normally returned from inter-village missions. So, tied with a rush of paperwork, a lack of sleep, and practically no breakfast spare two bites of soggy toast, Iruka was feeling a little burnt out – but too charged for rest.

"Thanks the deities it's a Saturday, eh, Umino?" laughed Iwashi from beside him, stretching his arms out and working out the kinks.

Iruka was usually rostered to work next to Iwashi. The guy was good for a laugh, even thought they were currently at odds to what should be removed – Iruka's ponytail, or Iwashi's tiny goatee. So far, Iruka was winning (though it was hard to really tell with their convoluted point system).

"We need to petition for a raise at the Academy. I'm pulling double-shifts now at the Mission Room, and alongside my classes, it's getting to be a pain in the ass," complained Shimon as he filed the last of his paperwork away. A rumble of agreement came from the handful of teachers in the room, and an indifferent noise from those who didn't.

"We could all strike for a week, and see how they deal with the kids..." Iruka's suggestion got a round of laughs, but they all knew that was a joke at best. Children, unsupervised, and armed with weapons was _not_ an equation they wanted to know the answer to.

Suzume adjusted her glasses and announced to the group, "I'll take it up with the Council, see what I can do." She ran a hand through her auburn frizzy curls with a tired arm and jotted down the note in a book on her desk.

The woman was a bit sharp, but generally the go-to person for official matters. Even though she was the main teacher for kunoichi seduction, she was brilliant with power play and politics. Her voluntary participation practically guaranteed a rise within the next few months for Iruka.

"Hey, you lot, d'ya hear about Yuugao?" Iwashi grinned wickedly as he dropped the information on them all. A heavy pause fell as the group eyed him suspiciously.

"About her with Genma at the _Scarlet Sun_?" Iruka queried warily. He'd heard something about this from someone who heard it from someone else, and the reliability of the information was sketchy at best.

The gossip of lovers' trysts was nothing generally, but most people knew Hayate, the shy, tired bloke with a sickly couch and an aptitude with blades; and they knew about how he died a few years back at the hands of Sand at the chuunin exams in Leaf. His fiancé was Yuugao, a well-known jounin and suspected ANBU. Genma was usually on the roster as Hayate's mission partner before the guy had died.

Iruka knew them all, but not on a personal level. Still, Hayate's death sent shockwaves through Konoha—even if it was overshadowed when the Third died not too long afterwards.

"Is that even true?" Shimon asked, his voice lifting at the end in that weird way that highlighted his accent.

Suzume challenged in a dull voice, "If it is true, so what?"

"It's been years," added a quiet female voice from the back rooms.

"Time fixes everything," dismissed a fresh-faced youth Iruka vaguely recognised as being a new graduate; judging by the arm wounds, was forcibly confined to desk duty due to injury.

"But his mission partner's widow..." trailed off Shimon, unknowingly stressing his vowels.

"Hayate would've wanted it," Iwashi inserted deftly, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

"I highly doubt he'd have _wanted_ it—"

"—but he wouldn't say no, now he's dead and all."

Iruka finished writing his signature on the last piece of work he had before asking, "How are we to know what's right or wrong?"

"I think: good for her; the living have to move on from the dead," Suzume said as she stood up, gathering her things in preparation to go home and catch up on much needed sleep. The idea of getting away from more work was appealing to Iruka, so he increased his pace of packing things away, half an ear still trained on the conversation.

"I'm pretty sure she swore revenge," said the quiet woman coming from the back rooms, balancing an unstable load of boxes in her arms.

"She can't do anything about it until Leaf breaks its ties with Sand," Shimon replied, batting at the hair in front of his eyes tiredly. He further sympathized, "Poor Yuugao. I mean, for her rank and all, she can't even go after the bloody bastards who did that to Hayate."

"Anyone know about how Genma's coping?" Iruka asked as he slipped his messenger bag over his head. "I think Hayate's saved his life on more than one occasion."

"Right, but Genma's returned the favour with those bloody poisoned needles of his," Iwashi added.

Suzume stated firmly, "If they're happy, who are we to judge?" With that, she made the half-tiger seal and disappeared with only a wisp of smoke where she once stood.

"We always judge anyway," murmured Iwashi, earning a short laugh from Iruka.

Several puffs of smoke quickly appeared in and around the Missions Room; Suzume's departure was usually the sign that it was an acceptable time to go. Iwashi stuck around, because the place always had to be manned, and he usually waited for the changing of the guard. However, Iruka was waiting for Shimon to hurry up and finish – though that man was unfortunate to be a very slow writer – so they could go spar and train.

Playfully, Iwashi pulled at Iruka's hair, tugging out the hair tie. Just as Iruka had whipped out a pair of sharpened kunai to give the other chuunin a quick trim to his goatee, the doors of the Mission Room opened, giving way to two jounin—one of them immediately recognisable as Hatake Kakashi, the other average and otherwise completely forgettable if he wasn't wearing an odd mask-stylized forehead protector that covered his jaw.

They were staring at the scene before them with mild shock; which was admittedly justified, seeing as Iruka looked a little crazed, with a pair of knives pointed at a co-worker's neck and his hair falling haphazardly around his face.

Clearing his throat, Iruka sheathed his weapons and snatched back his hair tie, returning his hair back to its ordered state, glaring daggers at Iwashi. The bastard simply shrugged and smiled. Iruka gave him a look that threatened _later_ in a way that might've been playful if there wasn't such a wicked glint to it.

"How can I help you?" Iwashi asked briskly, sitting back down in his chair, picking up a pen in resigned preparation of impending paperwork.

As Kakashi stepped forward to the desk, murmuring details of his last mission—perhaps the one he was talking about the day before?—his companion wandered over to Iruka's side and asked curiously, "Your family name is Umino, is it not?"

"Yes, it is." Iruka frowned slightly, but made no move to expand on that line of thought.

"Mitarashi speaks well of you." His eyes were dark and stern under furrowed brows. The intense gaze unsettled him somewhat, and he scratched at the corner of the scar crossing his face.

_Anko?_ "That's ... good to know," Iruka replied warily, eyeing up the man before him, wondering again at the odd addition he made to his forehead protector, so eerily reminiscent of the Second Hokage.

"I would like to introduce myself," said the other man after a pause that made it clear Iruka would say no more. "Please, call me—"

"—Tenzou," Kakashi called out, interrupting the conversation. "Come here. Iwashi says you need to sign on the dotted line."

A brief flash of undefined irritation flashed across Tenzou's eyes, but then they were blank again, and covered with a slight, bashful smile.

"Ahh, I thought I filled out that form correctly."

"You apparently didn't," shrugged Kakashi as he stepped aside to make room for Tenzou to bend over the desk and sign the scroll.

Iruka wondered if he was imagining it, or was the silver-haired jounin avoiding his gaze? Regardless, he didn't spare it much more thought when he heard the loud click coming from Shimon's suitcase as he closed it. Iruka had tried to convince his senior that a messenger bag was more functional, but the other chuunin liked the battered, old suitcase for the sense of professionalism.

"Which grounds do you want to practise on?" he asked, flicking his head to get his fringe free from his eyes, even though that didn't help and it merely flew back down.

Shifting the bag strap around his shoulder, Iruka mused over several spots before asking with the faintest of grins, "Got a change of clothes?"

Predictably, Shimon groaned and asked, "Don't tell me; the SS-Grounds?"

The Leaf SS-Grounds was one of many specialised training zones in the village. Technically it stood for _Snow/Slush Grounds_, where the dirt was intentionally slicked with ice and snow to make a churning mixture of watery, cold mud to practise in. No matter how careful you were, inevitably you would need a hot shower and a change of clothes after an hour or so in there. Especially since it was winter and there was a hell of a lot of snow to go around.

"You owe me a trip to the hot springs for this," grumbled Shimon, and Iruka smiled widely. The man didn't like the SS-Grounds much, but on the few occasions he conceded to spar there, Iruka really got a work out. After all, Shimon had an affinity with water, and was learning to work with earth as well. Mud was as much his element as lightning was Iruka's.

"You're scheduled for a short solo-mission tomorrow, right?" Iruka asked and Shimon nodded absently.

Getting rostered for a Sunday mission always sucked; they were normally pointless, yet tedious, assignments that were out of the village. You got no rest for Monday and a shorter weekend. At least the pay was decent.

Iruka turned around to go with Shimon in time to see Kakashi leaving with Tenzou, but the silver haired jounin was looking back, staring intently at him before the door swung shut. Again, Iruka felt like he was missing the bigger picture. He frowned and tightened his grip on the strap of his bag.

Hopefully Hijiri was feeling energetic, because Iruka was fully intending of using their spar to release some frustration.

"Later, Iwashi," called out Shimon as they walked out. The grunt of reply brought Iruka back to reality as he rubbed his eyes and shook his head. He was simply tired; thinking things that didn't exist.

Next thing he'd know, he'd be seeing things.

¥¥Y¥¥

"Done already, Umino?" taunted Shimon as he raised his hands in a casual defensive position. Sweat ran down his brow, and mud streaked his clothes and face.

"Screw you, Hijiri," Iruka snarled back, biting back gasps as he tried to concentrate. With his clothes weighed down by so much mud, and his body cold from the snow, his movements were slower than usual. He was tiring fast.

"Ooh, watch that spinning back-fist," commented Shimon as he stepped back gracefully. "You're leaving your left flank open for attack, you know, right?" He demonstrated with a light jab that Iruka instinctively jumped back from.

"I don't need the commentary, but thanks," the lightweight chuunin growled, his ponytail falling from its bindings.

They'd long forsaken jutsu and weapons, and were now doing things a little old school with only their fists. Shimon was stronger with jutsu, Iruka was better with weapons and exploding tags, but it seemed they were even enough with hand-to-hand combat.

Shimon suddenly ducked before chuckling. "Reverse knife-hand, instead? Very nice choice."

The elbow-strike was sudden, making contact, forcing Shimon back. Now his arms were braced in a crossed position, and he looked a little surprised.

"How about you concentrate on your own moves rather than mine?"

Iruka barely finished his words before a sidekick nearly hit him on the back of his head. The air made a whistling noise as it passed harmlessly, but he staggered slightly.

Quick on his feet, Shimon took advantage of Iruka's sudden imbalance with an open-palm hit to the chest. There was a loud crack. But Iruka used a simple locking technique, turning the other chuunin's attack against him. Grabbing the arm, twisting the wrist and then flinging him down.

Winded, Shimon barely dodged the knee aimed at his gut. Rolling to his left, he scrambled to his feet, and quickly retaliated with a solid punch. Too much time to build up the momentum; Iruka stepped out of harm's way.

"Not bad," Hijiri smirked before adding, "You could do better."

"Still doing better than you," Iruka barked back aggressively.

Feinting to his left, Iruka then ran straight forward and tried to tackle Shimon; normally it would never have worked, but the blunt head-on approach came unexpectedly. They both landed in the mud and grunted at the hard impact.

Before Iruka could blink, Shimon had got him in a headlock from behind. Fingers coated with mud, frozen from ice-water, they scrabbled at the arm but left no damage. Getting hard to breathe. Iruka tried an elbow to gut, and though it hit, Shimon merely _oomphed_ and continued his grasp.

He was waiting for submission. Like _hell_ would Iruka concede at this point in the game.

It was a bit underhanded, but he pinched a sensitive pressure point on Shimon's wrist. The man yelped and let go, Iruka pulling free from the hold and scrambling away to build up distance between them.

Before he got too far, Shimon aimed to knock his legs out with a low, sweeping kick. Iruka intuitively leapt up, avoiding the blow.

Since they were within an arm's length of one another, Iruka attempted another reverse-knife hand. Deftly blocked, he went for an uppercut punch.

It hit. Just brushed the jaw, but it was with enough force that Shimon staggered backwards. A trail of blood dripped from his mouth. Iruka could feel a bruise forming around his neck, so he wasn't too sympathetic.

Warily, they both eyed their opponent, knees bent in preparation to spring.

"Truce?" Iruka asked tiredly, not moving from his position, ready for a counter-attack.

"Yeah, truce," Shimon said as he straightened up, stretching his back until it cracked.

"Starting to get a bit late," Iruka shrugged, lowering his hands. "Sun's preparing to set – even though we had a break for lunch, I'm starving."

"Agreed; I need to rest up anyway, for tomorrow." There was a touch of sarcasm in those words—a Sunday mission rarely needed additional training.

They began walking back to the fence bordering the training grounds, where they left their belongings. As they moved slowly through the thick, cold mud, their uniforms squelched and stuck uncomfortably to their skin. They smelled of sweat and dirt.

"I need a shower," muttered Iruka under his breath as he observed the grime covering his arms and torso. He wondered how something that was once green look so, so brown now. At least it was an old set and he could throw it away.

"Same," agreed Shimon, raking a dirty hand through even dirtier hair. For once, his bangs stayed out of his eyes, instead wetly stuck to his cheekbones. "You owe me a trip to the hot springs once I'm back from tomorrow's mission," he reminded.

"Yeah, yeah," Iruka said. "Worth it, though."

"Definitely," replied the other with unsuppressed enthusiasm.

They reached their gear and stopped to have a drink and wipe away the worst of the muck from their skin. It was a fruitless effort, and they soon gave up, sitting under the trees instead, sipping from their canteens.

"Hey, are you going to try out for the jounin exams soon?" Iruka asked. He knew of the other's aspirations of achieving a higher rank and figured from the spar that the time would be coming soon.

"I'm waiting for you to put your hand up," Shimon replied without blinking.

Rolling his eyes, Iruka laughed, "I could never have the chakra stores for that."

"Apply for a special-jounin role then," Hijiri countered persistently. "You'd do well in tactical planning."

"Shimon, we've been over this. I'm not going to change from journeyman ninja." Covering a deep yawn with his hand, Iruka continued, "Seriously, when are you signing up?"

"I'm thinking of applying in the spring," exhaled Shimon heavily. "I've mastered earth fairly well now, so I've got the double-elemental requirement down."

"The mud element would probably be appreciated by the higher-ups," Iruka mused, looking up at the crow glaring down at them, ruffling its feathers like a regal prince.

"Perhaps," Shimon murmured, taking gulps from his flask of herbal tea. After a long pause, he added, "It's harder than I thought it would be."

"What? Training for a double-elemental affinity? I'd suppose that would be difficult."

"No. Well, _yes_, that was quite a challenge, but I'm talking about the kids," Shimon said with a bashful grin. "It'll be hard to leave the buggers behind."

"Thought you couldn't wait to get rid of them?"

"Not quite yet. They're a bunch of brats, but once you earn their respect, it's like you hung the moon," said Shimon with a small smile. "Ahh, I don't know. Kids grow on you, I guess."

"Don't worry, I get what you mean."

Shimon nodded affirmative, and then closed his eyes and leant against the trunk with the appearance of napping.

Iruka noted the pale skin glaring in stark contrast with the dirt and wondered whether the guy wanted to rise to jounin for the village or for acceptance. A jounin was a mark of strength, resilience, power. Shimon had all those things, but his foreign background stopped him being treated quite like everyone else – the kids probably judged him without considering his background, and he most definitely appreciated that.

For some reason, Kakashi flashed in his mind and he thought: _Not all jounin are accepted; some are lonelier than the rest of us_.

¥¥Y¥¥

Iruka's body felt tingly in that uncomfortable raw way that spoke of new skin. Perhaps he was a little too rough in cleaning up his body of the sticky dirt, and even though he got home and was freezing, scalding hot water was not the best of options. At least the soft cotton of casual wear was kind enough to it, compared to the stiff starchy material in normal ninja garb.

Usually he would simply crash after his shower, tired as he was from his early shift and the sparring session, but he needed to make a quick grocery run. One arm carried bread, milk and eggs, the other hefting a few kilos of rice. Probably he should have gotten more food, but exhaustion was starting to take its toll on him, and Iruka loathed taking soldier pills – the inevitable next-day crash never made them worth it.

As he paused at a fruit stall, he felt, rather than saw, Anko pass him with – who was it? Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he saw the purple-haired kunoichi walking beside Tenzou, easily recognisable by his flashing confining forehead protector. _Wait, what was she doing with Tenzou?_

"Umino!" a familiar voice called out. Turning around, he saw Shimon jog towards him, looking a bit conspicuous with his arms full carrying a filled fish-bowl; there was a plastic bag hooked around his elbow, bouncing with every stride.

"Aren't you meant to be sleeping?" Iruka asked as soon as the other was close enough. He eyed the man's possessions without commenting; he was still debating whether he should ask.

"I could ask you the same thing," laughed Hijiri, shifting the fish-bowl in his arms to a more stable position. He motioned with his head for Iruka to lead the way.

Wordlessly, Iruka started walking towards his apartment, Shimon easily falling in step beside him. The bustling sounds of the marketplace were soothing in an almost meditative way as the men darted past the stalls. Ice or snow sometimes blocked their path, but they carefully navigated around those with chakra re-enforced feet.

Finally, curiosity won over everything and Iruka asked about the fish-bowl. A bashful grin spread across the other's face, Shimon chuckling in a somewhat embarrassed manner.

"About that; I was kind-of hoping you could take care of Kuro and Shiro for me—" Iruka blinked in confusion before realizing that he was referring to the black-and-white striped Angelfish swimming languidly in the water, "—while I'm off on the mission."

"Sunday missions barely take a day though," Iruka pointed out bemusedly, "So no need to be overly concerned over the welfare your fish."

"New orders," shrugged Shimon before sighing heavily. "The mission rank got bumped up, too, now that it's escorting."

"How long will you be out?" Iruka took on a sympathetic tone, knowing how troublesome it was to have mission parameters change the day before. "And what about your students?" he tacked on as an afterthought.

"Probably I'll be out for a few extra days," Hijiri waved his hand vaguely, as if he wasn't quite sure. "As for what'll happen in my absence, I've conned Mozuku into looking after the brats."

"Trusting the trainee with your kids?" There was disbelief and good humour in Iruka's voice.

"More like punishing him with them," replied Shimon. They shared a grin before bursting out in laughter.

"Getting back to the original question; sure, I'll look after—, wait, what were their names again?"

"Their names are Kuro and Shiro." The hint of pride was not imagined, Iruka decided firmly after a heartbeat of hesitation.

Bending down to look at the Angelfish with better clarity, Iruka suddenly frowned. Both fish looked identical with their alternating black-and-white strips and long, thin fins floating out behind them.

"How can you tell which is which?"

Shimon paused in his step, looked down, and replied, "You know, I've never really figured that out. It doesn't really matter anyway – those two are always together, born from the same mating pair too, for that matter."

"Same pet store?" Iruka asked as they climbed the stairs of his apartment block, his hands busy patting his front pockets for his house keys.

"No, no, no," Shimon answered quickly. "I bred them myself." _Ahh, the pride is thus explained._ A splash came from the bowl as it was shifted in its hold.

"I didn't know you had that as a hobby," Iruka said, moving all his bags to one hand, the other searching blindly for keys within his back pockets.

"Watching fish swim is relaxing," was all that was said as way of explanation. Iruka looked at the other chuunin with a sceptical gaze.

"It is," Shimon enthused. "Try it when you're looking after them."

They were now in front of room 011850, and Iruka _hoorah-ed_ at the sudden almost-miraculous discovery of his keys, roughly shoving them in the lock. He should consider investing in a bigger keychain, but that would probably mean a slightly bigger embarrassment at not being able to locate them every time.

"Sorry about the mess," Iruka muttered with a sudden flush as the pair walked in, feeling the need to apologise for the complete clutter that made up his home.

He wondered vaguely why a pair of his training pants was atop the kitchen table, but thought perhaps the wilting—read: dying—pot plants were something of more concern to a visitor thinking of entrusting something alive into his care.

"Mess is a part of life," Shimon recited in an overly—clearly mocking—philosophical tone.

"Is that why everything doesn't make sense?" Iruka asked as he placed his groceries on the table, knocking the pants to the floor surreptitiously.

"I'm betting it's this huge cosmic joke to fuck us up."

"Always eloquent, you are," Iruka commented as he rolled his eyes.

As Shimon put down the fish-bowl and bag—which Iruka finally saw to be holding some fish pellets—on a small coffee table, he said, "Your traps are rather strange."

"You noticed?" Iruka wasn't surprised, even though he voiced the question.

"Yeah, when I walked in. Why do you have them attuned to your chakra; isn't it better to manually set and disable them?"

Putting away the eggs in his fridge, Iruka said, "I've got a few around the doors and windows."

"Not enough to be that much of a bother," Shimon muttered doubtfully.

"Guess I'm just lazy then, aren't I?" Iruka shrugged, unrepentant.

Shaking his head, Shimon moved to a window and said, "I'll be off then. Thanks for the help."

"No worries." Iruka was leaning against the kitchen table as he waved his colleague off.

As the chuunin jumped from the windowsill to a downstairs balcony, Iruka heard him add, "You still owe me a trip to the hot springs, you know!"

¥¥Y¥¥

The tinkle of a bell turned heads. Two other ninja were entering the back room where Shizune and Iruka were – presenting their identification and chakra signatures. Weapons stores always had a backroom for ninja. It was a general law that was strictly enforced. Hidden Villages regulated who got weapons, and how much they got. Retired, injured, or off-duty high-ranked chuunin usually manned the desks. Visiting ninja either brought their own weapons or jumped through hoops to get some from Leaf.

Iruka owned a special card allowing him to buy large stockpiles for his class and charge the purchases to village administration. Shizune got a special ID to access restricted materials that most jounin _wished_ they could get. It was not just a matter of skill, but trust, too.

Shizune was holding several thin ropes woven from copper thread. "What do you think?" she asked. "Twelve bronze pieces per meter sounds good, but copper is such a limited metal if your chakra affinity _isn't_ lightning or fire..."

"Too bad you're a wind-affinity then."

Flipping her short, dark hair back, Shizune sighed and put away the copper rope, moving to look at some pretty little vials with some nasty poisons in them. Packaging ranged from glass to plastic to metal to porcelain. She scrutinized a rose-tinted glass vial of pain-induced-paralysis toxin, made from the extract of fox-glove nectar.

"You've trained under Lady Hokage; I truly doubt that anything here could match your lethal poisons," Iruka added as he absentmindedly picked up a rotund bottle, unnaturally cold to the touch.

Without looking up, Shizune admitted, "Sometimes it's less time consuming to get pre-made toxins – but even then, Lady Tsunade only will let me carry ANBU-grade quality."

"It's good to see there's someone keeping an eye on you."

"Shouldn't _you_ do that? I generally look after _your_ sorry ass when you pass out from over-exhaustion."

She shot him a quick look that seemed to encapsulate how idiotic she considered him to sometimes be. Which he was, sometimes; like when he took a double-shift at the Mission Room right after a day of school and a few hours of afternoon tutoring. Not to mention the lack of lunch and breakfast.

_Damn_, Iruka winced at the memory. _Shizune's 'Glare Of Death' was terrifying – especially when he was confined to a hospital bed and couldn't move._

When Shizune shoved him playfully, Iruka didn't even budge an inch from the force, instead laughing at the infuriated growl he elicited from the kunoichi.

"One of the Sannin trumps whatever card a mere chuunin like me can hold, don't you think?" Iruka grinned, as Shizune muffled a laugh in vain.

They were now in the corner of the shop shelved with blades of all varieties. Naturally, the chuunin gravitated towards the kunai. While the long swords were flashy, Iruka had always favourite the short hand-sized blades. Easy to conceal, easy to sharpen, and worked well with exploding tags.

Shizune drifted away slightly to observe a new shipment of throwing stars – five pointed, instead of the usual four, with a curve to the tips; very nifty, deeper penetration but not as practical for accuracy.

"Have you heard about Genma and—"

"—Yuugao?" Iruka finished. "Yeah, odd coincidence, but that was the rumour running around the Mission Room the other day."

"Thought you'd like to know; it's not a rumour." After Iruka shot her a look, she elaborated, "They're moved in together; signed up for a permit and everything."

"Figures," muttered Iruka. "Ninja can never go for the easy relationships, can they?"

"Where's the fun in simple?" Shizune laughed as they moved past the weaponry department.

"Good point."

"So what do you think?"

"Not sure. The living can't cling to death forever, I'd suppose." _Otherwise they'd go insane._

Iruka's attention was then diverted as he checked out a new variation of exploding tag – instead of releasing a concentrated fire bomb it would burst in a cloud of scalding steam.

"Don't recommend those," Shizune piped up, noting where Iruka's gaze fell. "I've had a few soldiers swing by the hospital because those were misused. They're less predictable than the usual exploding tags."

Iruka rolled his eyes, and grabbed a small stack anyway. He wanted to fiddle with them a bit; he always liked dissecting equipment and gadgets to see how they worked.

Shizune pursed her lips, but he pre-empted her by saying, "I'll practise with them beforehand so don't worry."

After Iruka had paid for his purchases, they walked down the cobblestone streets almost aimlessly, talking about the predicted snow storm that was coming – some people predicted it would be one of the worst in years.

"Can we stop by the hot springs?" Iruka asked with his cold nose as prompter.

"You keen for a soak?"

"Yeah, but I also need to pick up a voucher 'cause I owe someone."

"I'd love to join you, but I need to check up on Lady Tsunade," Shizune explained apologetically.

Shrugging, Iruka said, "Won't keep you then."

"Ahh, we would have been split up anyway into the different gender-sections, so chin up." She pushed his jaw up with a gloved finger before laughing and making her way to the tower.

Shaking his head with still-glowing good humour, Iruka made the extra five minute walk to the hot springs. By the looks of things, the weather had made the place extra busy, but Iruka was so cold he was beginning not to care so much.

As he sank into the water, the thought suddenly crossed his mind, _Where has young Bito been? I haven't seen him at all today._

**¥¥Y¥¥**

**A/N: This was originally meant to include the hot springs scene (in next chapter), but it got too long. **

**Hope you've enjoyed!**


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